Lux Aurumque
by Emmyllou
Summary: Merlin joins the crew of Serenity. Merlin and the captain bond over ancient poetry. Shenanigans ensue. Rated M for language.


**A/N:** **The** **title comes from Eric Whitacre's** **Lux Aurumque** **. See the notes at the end for a list of poems, people, and other literary works referenced.**

 _Seeking pilot for Firefly-class ship with at least five years of experience. Must be willing to fly to border planets. Steady salary plus bonuses. Interested parties should speak to Captain Malcolm Reynolds of_ Serenity _in the Rising Sun Tavern and Inn_.

Merlin tore the notice down and stuffed it in his pocket before hoisting his bag back onto his shoulders. He grabbed his little wooden handcart full of all his worldly possessions and set a brisk pace through the grubby streets of the capital of Persephone. The run-down little tavern wasn't hard to spot. A weather-worn sign bore a stylized sun in peeling paint, and Merlin could see festive red lanterns gleaming through the windows. He pushed open the door, which did its best to creak ominously but only ended up sounding weary.

The inside of the Rising Sun was much more cheerful than its exterior might suggest. Like most buildings in this part of town, it was slightly ramshackle and seemed to be held up mostly by sheer force of will, but the patrons were merry, and a small band of musicians in a corner played an upbeat tune. Merlin stowed his bag and cart in the little coatroom, muttered a spell to hide them from unfriendly eyes, and made his way over to the counter of the bar. He had to duck his head to avoid some of the lower-hanging lanterns.

"Bourbon, neat. The cheapest you have; I don't care," Merlin told the bartender, placing a few bills on the counter. He considered for a moment and added a few more. "Make it a double."

The bartender grunted his assent and poured a healthy measure of dark amber alcohol into a relatively clean glass. Just before the other man scooped up the money, Merlin added one more bill to the small pile and pulled the crumpled notice from his pocket.

"I'm looking for Captain Malcolm Reynolds," he said, smoothing out the paper for the bartender to read.

The bartender scanned the room and nodded towards a man in a red shirt and suspenders lounging alone in a corner. A half-full tankard sat on the table in front of him, but he made no move to drink from it.

"Cheers," said Merlin, but the bartender only grunted.

Captain Malcolm Reynolds of _Serenity_ watched Merlin like a hawk as Merlin made his way over to the little table in the corner, trying not to trip over any of the ladies' hems. Reynolds didn't stand, but he did gently nudge the chair opposite him away from the table with his toe. Merlin took the gesture as an invitation to sit.

"I'm Merlin Emrys. I'm here about your ad," Merlin said, dropping into the proffered chair and laying the notice flat against the table.

"So I heard," drawled Reynolds. "And why do you think you're the pilot for me?"

Merlin tossed back half of his bourbon before answering. "Because I'm damn good." He was proud that he didn't even pull a face at the taste of the liquor.

Reynolds raised an eyebrow. "I see." He leaned back in his chair and studied Merlin from underneath a heavy brow. His eyes were piercing and intelligent, and Merlin felt stripped to the bone. It wasn't entirely unpleasant. He had spent so much time hiding that it might almost be a relief to be laid bare, even by a man such as Reynolds. "You fit all the qualifications listed? And you're prepared to provide proof?"

Merlin nodded and sipped his bourbon, trying not to look too eager. "I've got proof of license and previous employment. I've been flying for ten years now, mostly around the border planets."

"Got any experience flying Firefly-class ships?"

"A bit. During training, and for about half a year at my first job. Haven't had the privilege since then." Merlin winked at the other man. "Best ship I ever flew."

Reynolds snorted. "Must've been flying some rubbish ships then. Stow your flattery. It'll get you nowhere." The twinkle in his eyes belied his words.

Merlin downed the rest of his bourbon in one go and rubbed his hands together. "So, when do I meet the rest of the crew?"

"Hold yer horses, son. I haven't hired you."

Merlin made a show of looking around the crowded tavern. "Oh, of course, because there are experienced pilots lining up around the block for the opportunity to fly a Firefly-class ship around the border planets, doing the kind of work you're doing."

"And exactly what kind of work do you think I'm doing?"

"The kind that requires an experienced pilot to fly a Firefly-class ship around the border planets. What other kind of work would you be doing?" Merlin smirked. "Like I said, I'm not new to the area."

"New enough to risk leaving your bags in the coatroom of the Rising Sun," said Reynolds.

"Oh I'm not too worried. I've got you looking out for them, don't I?" Merlin said with his best cheeky grin.

Reynolds snorted at that. "Yeah, kid," he said. "I guess you do. Welcome to the crew. And for your first official order…" He drained the remainder of his drink in one go, and Merlin waited anxiously. "Get me a refill."

Merlin practically yanked the empty tankard out of Reynolds's fingers and shook his half-open hand before the other man could pull it away. "Thank you so much sir! I can't wait to start." He rushed towards the counter of the bar and got halfway there before realizing that he had left his own bourbon glass at the table. He sheepishly scurried back, snatched up his glass, and plonked them both down on the counter, along with another small pile of bills.

Reynolds watched the whole process with an expression of faint bewilderment. "There's no way this could possibly go wrong," he said to no one in particular, but Merlin was too far away to hear.

"...And this here's the kitchen," said Reynolds, ducking under a low door-frame into a cheery, spacious room. A long table dominated the center of the room, and a half-wall separated the area for food preparation from the rest of the space. A few chairs and a couch sat cozily around a low coffee table off to one side. "You'll pretty much have the run of the place. We don't have a cook, and we don't often eat meals all together. The unpleasant-looking fellow is Jayne. He's here to look intimidating."

Merlin offered his hand and a friendly grin to Jayne, but the other man just glared up at him from his spot at the table and went back to sharpening his (rather impressive, Merlin had to admit) collection of knives. He tried not to notice that Jayne's dark green T-shirt seemed to be speckled with blood.

A woman with dark skin and thick curly hair pulled back into a low ponytail stepped carefully into the kitchen. She wore a tight leather vest over a long-sleeved blue shirt, and her leather pants were tucked into combat boots that laced up her calves. "This is Zoe, my first mate," said Reynolds, taking Zoe's arm. "Zoe, Merlin is to be our new pilot. Try to be nice."

Zoe gave Merlin a tight smile, her full, proud lips pressed into a line. "May I speak with you privately, sir?" she asked with a significant glance around the room.

"By all means," said Reynolds, and he followed her out of the kitchen.

"How could you hire a new pilot without consulting me first?" Merlin could hear Zoe hiss before their voices faded out down the hall.

Merlin dropped into a seat opposite Jayne. "So… you like… knives?" Jayne didn't even raise his eyes; he just kept lovingly drawing the whetstone down the blade in what could almost be a caress. "That's cool. I used to have a sword. I was never very good with it though," Merlin tried again. He thought Jayne may have growled slightly, but he couldn't be sure. "I had a friend who was really good with swords. I used to polish his sword almost every day." That earned him a hearty snort of what may have been laughter, and Merlin blushed when he realized the implication. "Not like that!" he protested, but the damage had been done. He ceased his attempts at conversation and instead traced the patterns in the grain of the old wooden table as he waited for the captain and Zoe to return.

They came back into the kitchen just a few moments later, followed by another man around Merlin's apparent age and a girl who looked to be in her late teens.

"Simon Tam," said Reynolds. "The ship's medic. And his sister, River." With that, he bustled around the counter and started chopping something. Zoe leaned against a nearby wall and watched Merlin coolly.

Merlin stood to greet them, and Simon smiled and shook Merlin's hand. "It's nice to meet you." His voice was soft, and his words were rounded and fully formed, with none of the drawl that Reynolds and Zoe had. He was from one of the inner planets, then.

River didn't say anything; she just looked at Merlin with big, haunted eyes, but she did tentatively grip his outstretched hand. At the faint brush of her fingers, Merlin felt a spark, almost like an electrical shock. It spread like fire from his fingertips throughout his body, multiplying within his veins. He jerked his hand away and stumbled backwards, just barely managing to catch himself on the edge of the table before he sprawled over Jayne's knives.

"Ow!" exclaimed River. "You shocked me." She raised her fingers to her lips, and her eyes filled with accusation.

"Maybe you shouldn't walk around with bare feet then," scolded her brother. "You're building up static. Go put on some shoes. Jayne is playing with his knives and I wouldn't put it past him to 'accidentally' drop one on your foot." He patted her on the back, and she scurried away after one last curious glance at Merlin.

Reynolds plopped a plate of what looked like red beans and rice down on the table and dropped heavily into a chair. He shoveled a bite into his mouth. "You'll have to wait a bit to meet Kaylee and Inara, I'm afraid," he said with his mouth still full, ignoring Zoe's quiet _tsk_ of disapproval. "There's some kind of minor catastrophe going on in the engine room that she won't be pulled away from but won't let any of us near, and Inara's taken her shuttle to meet with a client. We'll be leaving as soon as she gets back."

"Is she with one of your clients?" Merlin was surprised that the captain wouldn't speak with clients himself, but maybe he had too many clients to deal with personally and so was forced to delegate.

His words provoked a round of hearty laughter from the room. Even Simon, who wore an expression of lofty detachment like a suit of armor, permitted himself a small smile.

Reynolds spluttered. "No! No, not one of my clients. Stop laughing." But the chuckles only renewed. Zoe's laughter turned hysterical, and the captain glanced at her in concern.

"Inara is a Companion," explained Jayne between peals of laughter.

"Oh. _Oh._ " Merlin flushed when he realized his mistake. He could feel his ears turning bright pink, and he hoped that his hair was long enough to hide the worst of his embarrassment. "Sorry, sir. I didn't realize."

"No harm done," said Reynolds. He stabbed rather viciously at his food a few times before glaring at the still-chortling Jayne. "Jayne," he barked. "Help Merlin move his personal effects to his quarters."

Jayne sulked, but did as he was told. "You've already gotten the full tour?" he asked as he led Merlin through the maze of hallways to the cargo hold.

"Yep. Flown a Firefly before as well. I remember generally where things are."

Jayne grunted and remained silent the rest of the way back to the hold.

Merlin slung his bag over his shoulders and grabbed two of the suitcases from his handcart, leaving just one for Jayne. The cart itself would have to remain in the hold; it would be impossible to maneuver through the hallways and down the ladder into Merlin's bunk.

They passed River on the way to the part of the ship which contained the crew's quarters, and Merlin noticed that she was still barefoot, despite her brother's warnings. She shrank against the wall as Merlin bustled by. He could feel the pressure of her eyes on the back of his neck, and it made his skin prickle. He glanced back before rounding a corner, but the girl had already scampered off.

"Don't worry about her," grumbled Jayne as they approached the crew's' bunks. "She's weird. This one's yours." He indicated one of the hatches. "Climb on down; I'll toss your stuff."

Merlin opened the hatch and scrambled down the ladder. Jayne dropped the suitcases one by one, and Merlin caught them as they fell and set them on the ground at his feet.

"I'll let you unpack now," said Jayne, retreating. "Someone will fetch you when Inara gets back. Or you can come abovedecks. Whatever." He let the hatch fall shut with a clang, and Merlin found himself alone once more.

He stared around at his new home, his hands on his hips. The room was small and spartan. A bed was tucked into a corner, and a lamp stood on the table next to it. A few bare shelves lined the walls, along with a small armoire. The room boasted no decorations and no signs of previous occupants. Merlin set his suitcases on the bed and went about unpacking. He didn't have many belongings, mostly clothes and a few guns and several dozen dizzyingly ancient tomes of spells. He smiled as he traced his fingers over their spines. The magic that preserved them was holding strong. The last suitcase he didn't open, instead sliding it under his bed after checking the locks to make sure they were still secure.

Merlin planned on meandering his way back to the kitchen and fixing a meal, but a ruckus emanating from the engine room forestalled his quest. He poked his head into the room and immediately started coughing on an acrid wave of black smoke. "Need any help in there?" he managed to wheeze.

"No," called out a woman's voice. "I think I've just-about-got it!" A loud metallic thunk, and then a young woman in a mechanic's coverall emerged from the smoke. Her hair was making a brave but ultimately futile escape attempt from her brown braided pigtails, and smudges of grease decorated her face and coverall. "Oh," she said when she caught sight of Merlin, her eyes widening almost comically. "Who're you then?"

"Merlin Emrys. New pilot," Merlin said as he proffered his hand.

"I'm Kaylee. I'm the mechanic," said the woman. She reached out her hand to grip Merlin's own but realized halfway through that she was covered in grease. She halfheartedly wiped her hand on her coverall but only succeeded in smearing the oil around further.

Merlin bit back a chuckle at her predicament. "Everything alright with the engine?" he asked. Kaylee opened her mouth to answer, but Simon cut her off by stepping nimbly around Merlin, sliding his arms around her waist, and pulling her into a deep kiss. Merlin shuffled his feet. When they didn't emerge for thirty seconds, Merlin turned to leave. "I'll take that as a yes," he mumbled, mostly to himself.

Merlin left them to it-he had seen young, freshly fulfilled love enough times to recognize it when it taunted him to his face. There would be no pulling Kaylee and Simon apart for quite some time. He picked his way to the ship's bridge, telling himself firmly that he should not begrudge their happiness. Before Merlin could reach the cockpit, however, Reynolds stopped him short once more. The captain had draped a long brown coat over his clothing, and Merlin was abruptly transported millennia back in time, back to an age when another man wore a long brown coat and pierced Merlin with stormy blue eyes and issued orders like it was his birthright to be obeyed. Merlin shook the raindrops of memory out of his head. Reynolds _wasn't_ Arthur. Dozens of almost-Arthurs had haunted Merlin for the past two thousand years. Damned if he was going to let this one get to him.

"Y'alright there?" Reynolds said. His voice seemed to stretch through time, and Merlin dragged himself back to the present.

"Fine," Merlin replied, blinking his eyes a few times to focus. "Been a long day. Must have zoned out."

Reynolds pursed his lips. "Get yourself some coffee before we take off, yeah? Don't want you zoning out at the helm. There's a coffee maker on the bridge." He waited for Merlin to nod before continuing. "Oh, and Inara sent a wave. She'll be here in a few minutes. Start up the ship as soon as she's in sight but wait for her to dock her shuttle before takeoff. I want to be off Persephone as soon as possible."

"You expecting trouble?" Merlin asked.

"Just don't want to be here any longer than necessary. There's a course laid in for St. Albans. You get to the bridge, make sure everything's ready to go."

"Aye, Cap'n," said Merlin, trying to imitate the relaxed slang of the rest of the crew. He must have missed the mark, because Reynolds gave him a funny look as he turned on his heel and strode to the kitchen.

Merlin scurried to the bridge and lowered himself slowly into the pilot's seat. It would feel good to be flying again, almost like coming home. But of course he didn't have a home, not anymore, and that was just the problem, wasn't it? He had read so many stories over the years about the lonely cosmic wanderers, the mages whose own power isolated them, and there he was, fulfilling all of the stereotypes. He was like some horrid mashup of Captain Jack Harkness and Archmage Ged, only he had made all the wrong decisions and Ged had made the right ones. His hands danced over the control interface almost automatically, and he kept one eye on the sky for the expected shuttle. Everything seemed to be in order for liftoff. Merlin started a strong cup of coffee brewing.

A small craft made from the same material as _Serenity_ came into view over the horizon, and a quick scan revealed it to be one of her shuttles. Merlin pushed a button and pulled a lever and was rewarded by the faintest thrum that traveled from his feet up his spine all the way to his heart. The shuttle flew over the top of _Serenity_ and out of Merlin's view, and moments later a woman's image appeared on the dashboard screen.

"I'm docked," she said, then narrowed her eyes and squinted through the screen. "Oh, who are you?"

"New pilot," said Merlin with a rakish half-smile, the one which had caused so many women-and men-to fall into his bed over the years. The woman was very pretty, after all, and it never hurt to charm pretty women. She looked utterly unimpressed. Merlin supposed that, as a Companion, she had had all manner of charming grins aimed her way. He quickly schooled his expression into neutrality as he hit the standard launch sequence.

"I didn't know we were getting a new pilot," the woman-Inara-said over the dull roar of _Serenity_ 's liftoff.

"What happened to your old pilot?"

She was silent for a moment, and Merlin took his eyes off the rapidly darkening sky to glance at the communication screen.

Inara worried at her lip. "Reavers," she said finally. "We don't talk about it much. He was Zoe's husband. And after that, River-you've met River, right? She flew the ship for a little while, but she's… unpredictable. Mal wanted someone he knew he could depend on when things get stressful."

Merlin nodded once and cut the comm screen. He had lost friends to Reavers. He had never really believed the common folk theory that Reavers were just what happened when men stared too long into the void of space. Had he himself not stared also, consumed by grief and desperation and despair? If anyone were to go mad from the vast hungry emptiness-like some inverse new idea of moon-addled-it would have been him. Sometimes he had even prayed for it, for an end to his hopeless existence, even though he didn't truly believe. He had lost his faith long ago.

The navigator blooped quietly, and Merlin steered the ship towards the desolate St. Albans. The route planned out was circuitous, but Merlin supposed it had to be. He was a smuggler now, after all. Because of course that's what Reynolds and his crew did: they smuggled, they scavenged, and they hid. Merlin might have thought he would have been tired of hiding by now, but he had always been good at it. At least in this age, no one paid any mind to sorcerers. No one even believed in them anymore. The druids and their beliefs were all long-gone, preserved only in the pages of Merlin's books and in the blood and lungs and bones of the hollowed-out Earth, and no one was left to listen to them.

At least his own power hadn't diminished. Merlin had been afraid that it would when he first left Earth. Magic was so much a part of the land that Merlin thought he might leave it behind when he left the planet. But it stayed with him, singing in his bloodstream, and he let it out sometimes late at night when no one could see the gold flash of his eyes. He was careful to keep it hidden; he shuddered to think of the damage that a 'Verse-wide version of the Salem Witch Trials would do.

Reynolds came in then and startled Merlin out of his reverie. He sat down in the co-pilot's chair with a heavy sigh. He stared into the stars for a few moments, and Merlin wondered if he was thinking about his previous pilot, the one who had been killed by Reavers. "Tell me more about yourself," he said abruptly.

Merlin shrugged. "What do you want to know?"

"What can you do?"

"What can I… do?"

Reynolds waved his hand impatiently. "I need to know if I can bring you into the field if necessary. Can you handle yourself in a fight? Can you shoot a gun? What can you do?"

"I've been in a few fights over the years, yeah. And I can shoot. I'm pretty good with computers, too. Used to work on maintaining the Bellerophon Estates tech. If you can keep one of those things in the sky, let me tell you, you can keep _anything_ flying." Merlin chuckled.

"Huh. Nice cushy job. Rich folk will pay a lot for you to keep them afloat. Why'd you leave?"

"Got bored. I guess I had what they used to call _wanderlust_. I wanted to see the 'Verse, I suppose."

"Still though, you could have saved up and taken a nice fancy cruise ship and seen all the pretty sights in the Core. Why come all the way out here? Why'd you go from a safe, well-paying job to working for me?"

Merlin scoffed at that. "I didn't. I told you, I have ten years of pilot experience. It's not like I'm straight off Bellerophon."

"You may as well have been. I know a lot of the people you worked for. Dealt with them myself a few times. They ain't much different."

Merlin couldn't think of an answer to that.

"Ten years of wanderlust, though. That's a long time. From what I understand, you were supposed to go back home after your _Wanderjahr._ And your home ain't in the border planets. You talk fancy, like Simon and River. You're good with computers; means you're educated. You're from one of the inner worlds. And things are a good sight better there even for the poorest families than they are on the border. And you ain't poor, as we've already established."

Merlin raised an eyebrow.

"So I figure, you're not wandering; you're running. You find jobs flying men like me around the border planets where the Alliance don't look too close."

Merlin adjusted the ship's yaw.

"What are you running from, Merlin Emrys?" When Merlin gave no answer, Reynolds swiveled the chair around to face him directly. "I need to know. I'm putting my life and the lives of my crew in your hands, and I need to know about anything that could endanger them."

"You're wrong," said Merlin after a few heartbeats of silence. He fought to keep his voice steady. "I'm not running. I just-I had to get away from Bellerophon. It was driving me mad. The people, the job-I just couldn't take being yelled at by rich bastards who thought they were better than me because they were born in the right place at the right time. I took up flying on a whim, found out I liked it. I fly around the border because I never much liked the Alliance. I didn't fight in the war. I'm not a soldier." _Anymore_ , he thought. "But I didn't like what they were doing. So after the war ended, I flew for people who I figured thought the same as me. And they mostly did business on the border. I guess I wanted to get back at the Alliance somehow. One of my friends died fighting for the Independents. So every time I can get some medicine or protein to someone who needs it, behind the back of the Alliance, I figure I'm fighting with him in my own way." Reynolds stared, and Merlin blushed. "It's stupid, I know. But it's all I've got."

"Now that's a real nice story, _Mer_ lin. But I found something just _fascinating_ when I was looking into your employment history. A man with your name and your face worked for a law firm on Londinium thirty years ago. Must be a coincidence, huh?"

Merlin's mouth went dry. "That would be my father. I've always looked like he did when he was my age. And _Merlin_ is kind of a family name, I guess."

"Uh huh. So the Merlin Emrys, 28, arrested fifty years ago on Sihnon for spreading insurrectionist propaganda but escaped before sentencing. He's your grandfather, right? It's so strange that he looks exactly like you."

"Just a coincidence." Merlin gave Reynolds his most innocent, wide-eyed look. "Stranger things have happened, I'm sure."

Reynolds nodded slowly. "Such as, for example, the fact that nowhere can I find any photographs of any man named Merlin Emrys when he is any age other than your own? No baby pictures, no pictures of older men with families. No records of any siblings, even. Just a long string of men with your name and your face."

"Weird."

"You don't happen to have any explanation for that particular phenomenon, do you?"

"No sir, I do not."

"I thought to myself, _it's almost as if they're all the same person_. But that's just nonsense, isn't it?"

"Of course, sir."

Reynolds remained silent for a few moments before turning his chair back to face the stars. "Are you familiar with Arthurian legend?"

"I-yes." The abrupt shift in topic caught Merlin off-guard. "Um. Vaguely."

"It was a hobby of mine as a child, reading up on King Arthur. I'm a bit of a history buff, see. Your name made me want to do a little digging. Normally I wouldn't bother, but… Well. You know they called Arthur the 'Once and Future King'?"

 _Yes._ "No."

"You know he had a companion named Merlin, sometimes called Emrys?"

 _Yes._ "No."

"You know in some stories, Merlin was killed by being amontillado-ed in a sycamore or imprisoned in a tower, but in other stories he survives and waits indefinitely for Arthur's return?"

 _Fuck_. "I did not know that, sir."

"Records of Merlin Emrys go all the way back to Earth-That-Was, even before the invention of computers or photographs or electricity. There's paintings, woodcarvings, sculptures, tapestries of a Merlin Emrys who so faithfully served King Arthur. And all of them look exactly. Like. You."

"Very odd indeed, sir." Merlin could barely breathe. "But surely you don't think I'm the Merlin who counseled Arthur? That would be ridiculous. He's just a legend. There's barely any proof that he ever existed."

"What would be even more ridiculous is if Merlin Emrys lived that long and never learned to take a fake name."

"Maybe his name is all he has left," said Merlin before he could stop himself. _Damn_. That had been a mistake. So much for being good at hiding.

Reynolds's icy eyes snapped to Merlin, and Merlin could have sworn that he felt their physical pressure on the side of his skull. He made a few minute adjustments to the ship's course and studiously avoided the captain's gaze. "What must it be like for him, I wonder?" the captain mused, almost to himself. "He would be-what? Two thousand years old? How does he keep himself together? What does he do so he doesn't get bored?"

Destiny balanced on the edge of a knife, and just a few words could make it fall. If Merlin was damning himself, he may as well go all in. "Maybe he's a pilot, sir."

Destiny: falling, falling. Merlin counted the seconds until it hit the ground.

"Did you know," the captain said after a few tense moments, "that Merlin Emrys was famously courageous and loyal to his king? Any captain would be lucky to have a man such as him flying his ship."

Merlin let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Thank you, sir," he said, catching Reynolds's eye for the first time since the captain had sat down in the co-pilot's chair.

"For what?" said Reynolds. He winked.

Merlin turned back to the sky outside with a huff of laughter. "What are we delivering to St. Albans?" And the quiet, almost intimate shroud that had fallen over the bridge was lifted.

"Small-scale medical equipment. Syringes, sterile tubing, gauze, that kind of thing. Have you ever been there?"

Merlin shook his head. "I worked for a woman who made regular visits to Greenleaf, but that's about as close as I've gotten."

"Greenleaf, huh? What did she do there?"

"The same thing that anyone who makes regular visits to Greenleaf does," Merlin scoffed. "What do you think? ...Sir," he hastened to add when Reynolds raised an eyebrow at his flippancy.

"Hey, I'm not judging. Pharmaceuticals is a good business. But St. Albans is a whole different world. Hope you brought your long johns. I have a friend there, so we'll be staying planetside for twenty-four hours."

"I've heard it's a bit chilly."

"A _bit chilly_? It's _gorram_ frigid!"

"Oh." Merlin frowned and considered his clothing options. "I'm sure there'll be a place where I can buy a proper coat, right?"

Reynolds hesitated slightly too long before answering. "Sure, son. Probably."

It turned out that there was no place for Merlin to buy a proper coat, after all. But that was alright: When the captain's friend (and Merlin had his suspicions about just what kind of friend she was when she hugged Reynolds a little bit too long and kissed his cheek with slightly too much glee to be entirely platonic) noticed Merlin's chattering teeth, she whisked him away in a bustle of furs and had him fitted for a luxurious parka. She waved off all Merlin's attempts at payment. "You're with Mal," she said. "Means you're family."

It made sense, Merlin mused later, for such a warm community to develop on such a cold planet. It was the only way to survive the ever-present snow, like a tiny flame huddling in the lee while a hurricane raged just around the corner. A massive native beast, almost mammoth-like, had been slain two days prior, and Reynolds summoned fresh produce and bread from some below-decks cold storage. Put together, they had all the makings of a feast. Merlin never did learn what the beast was called, but its flesh was delicious.

The local drink of choice was a surprisingly spicy ale made from the only grain that could withstand the freezing temperatures. It warmed Merlin down to his toes, and when a lively tune started up and tables were pushed aside to clear a dance floor, Merlin happily got to his feet. He soon found himself in the arms of a woman wrapped in a silvery fur cloak-the night was so cold that furs were needed even indoors-and allowed himself to be swept up in an energetic dance that involved a lot of twirling and lifting. Simon and Kaylee danced nearby, and he could see Mal and Inara laughing on the sidelines. He beamed at them, and Inara waved. Merlin lost track of them after a while and another full mug of ale, and he felt himself sinking deeper into a haze. His dance partner's cloak seemed to splay out and envelop him like a welcoming blizzard, and he gladly lost himself in its howling winds. He dreamed even while he danced, and half-familiar ghosts whirled with him in the center of the storm.

A hand closed over Merlin's nape. "I think that's quite enough of that," he heard a gruff voice say, and he managed to connect the voice to Reynolds. "I need my pilot in flying shape tomorrow." Merlin surfaced from his dreams in stages. He shook his head to clear the last of the snowflakes away, and he noticed that the fires in the room had burned low. The dance floor had cleared considerably. The woman with the silver fur cloak kissed him chastely on the cheek and flitted away. Merlin stumbled a bit but managed to get his feet working properly, and he shook off Reynolds's steadying hand.

"I'm fine," Merlin insisted. He was quite proud that the words were clear and fully-formed. Reynolds raised a skeptical eyebrow but let Merlin walk under his own power.

"Follow Inara," the captain said. "She'll show you where y'all are sleeping." He looked around then. "Has anyone seen Jayne?"

"He left a little while ago with what's-her-face… the redhead," Inara said absently.

"Right, that's fine then," said Reynolds as the same woman who greeted him so enthusiastically before sauntered up. "See you tomorrow. Shoo." He linked his arm through hers and allowed himself to be dragged off into the night.

Inara turned away quickly. "Well come on then," she snapped without looking back at Merlin. She took a deep breath and tempered her spine with resolve. When she spoke again, her voice was gentler. "There's a few rooms just upstairs for us. I hope you don't mind sharing with Simon. Lucky for you, Jayne and Mal are otherwise occupied, so the room's not quite as crowded as it would have been." She didn't look like she thought Merlin was especially lucky.

Simon was already snoring in one corner of the darkened room. Merlin stripped off his outer layer and quickly burrowed into the thick furs. Someone had left a hot brick at the foot of the bed, and warmth spread up from Merlin's toes, the reverse of the sensations from the liquor. The dreams that claimed him this time were genuine but no more restful.

Simon's pained groan wakened Merlin far too early the next day, and he just managed to bite his teeth on a whimper of his own. The liquor had left him with a hell of a hangover. He waited for Simon's next prolonged complaint before whispering a quick incantation. The headache ebbed, and Merlin sighed in relief. He pushed the blankets back and stretched, then quickly thought better of it and scrambled into his new parka. On his way to the door, he somehow managed to bang his toes, hips, and shins on every available corner of furniture. Two thousand years, and he still moved like a puppy who hadn't yet grown into his paws.

"How are you so loud?" Simon groused, plopping his pillow over his head to block out the slivers of light trickling through the curtains.

"Sorry," whispered Merlin. "Do you have any hangover cure in the sick bay?"

"Round blue pills in a glass bottle. Bottom drawer in the first cabinet on the left. Label says _Electrolyze_. Fucking stupid name, but they work like magic."

"Gotcha." Merlin sped off back to the ship and made his way to the sick bay. The medicine was easy to locate, right where Simon had said. Posh he may be, but he kept an orderly medical station. Merlin approved. He hadn't told the captain, but he had earned a medical degree around the turn of the twenty-third century. He could appreciate a well-organized sick bay.

Back in his room in the tavern, Merlin propped Simon up and helped him swallow down a pill with a gulp of water.

"Do you need one?" asked the doctor a minute later, looking much perkier.

"I took one on the way over," Merlin lied without thinking. "Bloody miracle. I'll take this 'round to the others then, shall I?"

"Yeah, yeah." Simon waved him off distractedly. "Mal and Jayne aren't here, obviously, but the girls will be wanting some. They're just across the hall. Knock and wait for someone to open the door. Inara likes to embarrass people by pretending they interrupted her while she was dressing. Don't fall for it, and _don't avert your eyes_. It's a sign of weakness."

Merlin gulped and shuffled to the door across the hall, feeling rather like he was going into battle. He knocked firmly but not too loudly, he hoped, and he heard an answering scuffle of movement behind the door. Kaylee opened the door, her hair looking rather like a bird's nest, and sure enough, Merlin could see Inara in the foreground, one long dusky leg on tantalizing display as she fastened a chain around her ankle. She spluttered indignantly, but Merlin just winked at her and offered the bottle to the room at large. "Hangover cure, courtesy of the good doctor," he said magnanimously.

River appeared from behind Kaylee and all but ripped the bottle from Merlin's hands. She downed a pill without even a glass of water.

"River, you didn't even drink last night," Kaylee said as she too swallowed a pill and passed the bottle to Inara.

"I'm just making sure," she said without taking her eyes off Merlin. "This one is strange. He's not like the others."

"What others, sweetie?" Kaylee rubbed a soothing hand down the younger woman's back.

"You." River captured Kaylee's eyes with her own soulful stare. "And Inara and Simon and Mal and Jayne and Zoe and Book and Wash and… and…"

Zoe stirred on a far bed at the sound of her name, and Inara crouched beside her and gently coaxed her to take a pill.

"Book and Wash are gone, sweetie, remember?"

Inara fastened on her jewelry with extra care and did her best to not look like she was listening.

"But he's not _like_ them," wailed River, an edge of desperation creeping into her voice. "He's like me. Can't you tell it? But he's more, he's more than me, he's the snowmelt and I'm the river, don't you see? And you are the forest and Mal is the sun. That's why he shocked me." She turned her gaze to Merlin. "Because he's the snowmelt and I'm the river."

Merlin felt utterly nonplussed. "I really don't know what you mean," he forced from his tight lungs. "I'm just here to give you the Electrolyze."

"You're here for much more than that," said River, tilting her head and effortlessly excavating the core of Merlin's being. "But the Electrolyze will do for now." The bottle had made its way back into her hands, and she offered it to Merlin silently. Merlin took it, exceedingly careful not to touch the girl's skin.

"What do you mean, Mal is the sun?" Merlin asked.

River's gaze grew more intense. "He's _the_ sun, but he's not _your_ sun, see? Your sun burnt out a long time ago. All that's left are his bones."

Merlin tried not to think of the unopened suitcase beneath his bed. "I don't know what you're talking about," he choked out. "I'm just going to return this to the ship." Kaylee opened her mouth, but Merlin fled before she could speak. He brandished the bottle like a shield as he quickly retreated to the safety of _Serenity_. Electrolyze entirely forgotten in his back pocket, he passed his time until the farewell feast to be thrown in the crew's honor by adding an extra layer of magical protections to the suitcase containing Arthur's remains.

The feast was nothing special. Reynolds was absorbed with his friend, Jayne was nowhere to be seen, Zoe still nursed her hangover despite the Electrolyze, Simon and Kaylee were blind to anything but each other, Inara sulked, and River wandered off dreamily halfway through. Merlin spent much of the meal in near-silence. His dance partner from the previous night wasn't present, or if she was, he couldn't recognize her without her fabulous silver cloak.

As delightfully welcoming as the community on St. Albans was, Merlin was glad to leave. Jayne had launched himself through the rapidly-closing hatch, narrowly escaping being left behind. He sported a fresh collection of bite marks that ran from the join of his jaw and earlobe down his neck and disappeared under his collar. Merlin smirked when he saw it but he refrained from commenting. He instead remembered the bottle of Electrolyze and passed it to the other man, who glared in a way that Merlin chose to interpret as grateful.

Their next stop, as Reynolds informed Merlin, would be on the planet Muir. The course he described, designed to avoid any Alliance patrols, would take a bit more than a week. They were to pick up a shipment of antique swords from the estate of a fabulously wealthy sword collector who had just died and take them to Illyria, where a different but equally fabulously wealthy sword collector would purchase the entire shipment.

The journey to Muir was wholly uneventful, save for the increasingly strange and allegorical conversations Reynolds insisted on subjecting Merlin to. Merlin eventually figured out that his captain wanted to know more about his life in Camelot without directly asking and acknowledging the impossible fact of Merlin being a two thousand-year-old sorcerer. Reynolds was still a little leery of the whole situation. Merlin understood, so he started framing his memories in terms of _old legends he had read a long time ago_ or _stories he had heard once_. It was patently false, but the captain was grateful anyway, and Merlin enjoyed having someone he could talk to, even if he was just telling stories. Reynolds slowly grew more comfortable, but Merlin still avoided telling stories where his magic featured heavily. He had a feeling Reynolds wouldn't be as comfortable with those.

The captain dropped into the pilot's chair mid-afternoon the day before _Serenity_ was scheduled to arrive at Muir. "O Merlin in your crystal cave," he began grandly, and Merlin groaned. Reynolds ignored him entirely and continued to recite:

" _Deep in the diamond of the day,_  
 _Will there ever be a singer_  
 _Whose music will smooth away_  
 _The furrow drawn by Adam's finger_  
 _Across the memory and the wave?_

He looked at Merlin expectantly when he finished.

Merlin shrugged. "How the fuck am I supposed to know?"

"Oh, you couldn't possibly, of course. I just wanted to demonstrate the humorous coincidence."

"Very clever, sir," said Merlin with an eyeroll.

The captain was silent for a moment as though steeling himself. "There's a planet called Albion, you know," he said quietly.

Merlin suddenly found the navigation panel extremely fascinating. "I know," he replied. "I was one of the first colonists, just after it was terraformed. I spent maybe a hundred years there, and another fifty on Avalon."

"And?" prompted Reynolds when Merlin didn't continue.

"And nothing. I don't know what I expected to happen. There were certainly no moistened bints lobbing scimitars, if that's what you're wondering."

"Moistened-I-what?"

Merlin airily waved a hand. "Nothing, just an old film. Never mind."

"We won't be staying long on Muir. Maybe four hours." Reynolds shifted the conversation back to a more comfortable ground. "Inara has a client, and Zoe, Jayne, and I will restock. Kaylee needs some special part for the engine. I've gotten word that we'll have a few passengers as well. They're headed to Athens. It's close enough that I don't mind taking a detour to bring them there direct. Listen, Merlin," and the captain faced Merlin fully, suddenly intent. "You're free to spend time planetside on Muir, but you'll be staying on the ship while we're on Athens, same as Simon and River." He held up a hand to silence Merlin's indignant protest. "Athens is a bit rough around the edges, see. Them that live there don't take kindly to folk who don't fit in. You'd just attract trouble, and I _really_ don't want any trouble on Athens."

Merlin narrowed his eyes at Reynolds.

"Maybe Simon can give you some lessons. He's been teaching basic first aid to those of the crew who didn't learn it in the war."

"That would be nice." Merlin didn't mention his own medical degree. "I'm sure it's useful for the times when you attract trouble all on your own and you don't have the doctor to patch you up because he's back with the ship."

Reynolds, who had been in the process of getting up, possibly to fix himself a cup of coffee, abruptly dropped back into his chair. "Are you _sassing_ me, _Mer_ lin?" he growled.

"No, sir," said Merlin, unable to keep the slightest edge of mutiny out of his voice.

The captain nodded. "Right. You're to stay onboard the ship with the doctor and his sister. That's an order _._ "

"Aye, sir."

"And don't sulk. I'm just trying to keep our asses intact."

"I'm not sulking," Merlin sulked.

Reynolds rolled his eyes and swept off the bridge, scattering a trail of muttered Mandarin expletives in his wake.

Trouble didn't wait until Athens to strike. Trouble struck mere heartbeats after Merlin settled _Serenity_ gently on the landing strip just outside a port city on Muir, but he wasn't to know that until later. The captain led Zoe and Jayne off to meet with their seller and transport the cargo back to the ship, and Inara had already jetted away in her shuttle, so Merlin found himself tagging along after Simon, Kaylee, and River as they trawled through the expansive open-air market. Kaylee linked her arm through Simon's, and he smiled indulgently as she oohed and aahed over a delicate blown-glass menagerie of figurines, music boxes painted in jewel tones which filled the air with merry tunes, and most of all, dresses overflowing with frothy lace.

"They're all so beautiful," Kaylee sighed with rapture as she ran one loving finger over the skirt of a lavender confection. "Don't you think?"

"Hmm?" Merlin snapped out of his reverie. "Oh, yes. Quite."

Kaylee huffed at him and turned back to the dresses.

"Don't you need to find an engine part?" Simon asked several pained minutes later.

"Yes, I suppose," sighed Kaylee. She tore herself away from the dresses with one last look of regret, and the little group made their way into a greasier section of the market. The crowd pressed in closer, and Merlin kept a wary eye on River. She was starting to look like she might bolt.

Simon noticed River's nervousness as well. "What's wrong, _mei-mei_?" he asked, wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulders.

River just shrunk against Simon's side.

"Do you want to go back to the ship?" asked Kaylee.

River shook her head. "Everything got dark all of a sudden."

Merlin looked up at the canopy they had just stepped under. He opened his mouth to inform her that _that's just what happens when people move into the shade_ , but a warning glance from Simon silenced him.

"We're in the shade, sweetie, that's all," Kaylee said.

River shook her head again, a faint, tremulous motion, almost as though she were shivering. "I'm cold."

"River, it's boiling hot." Simon was incredulous.

"It'll get warmer soon though." The girl stared at Merlin, and Merlin had the same sense of being pierced and evaluated that he had gotten from Reynolds, only River saw beyond him, not within him. "Your sun is just below the horizon."

Merlin just shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what you're talking about, really. The sun is right there." He waved his hand in the general direction of the sky, but River didn't respond.

"Hey, there's the part I need!" Kaylee's cheerful voice sounded oddly loud. She ducked into the next stall over and forked over what seemed to be an incongruous amount of money, considering the miniscule size of the tangled-up metal tubes. Simon kept a worried eye on River for the rest of their excursion in the marketplace, but the little group made it safely back to _Serenity_ without any other incidents.

The cargo had been loaded, the passengers had boarded, and the ship had been refueled by the time Merlin returned. The captain had even bought his crew a treat: an entire bushel of fresh apples awaited them in the kitchen. Merlin munched an apple appreciatively as _Serenity_ broke out of the atmosphere, leaving a golden trail behind her. Maybe that was why he enjoyed flying so much, Merlin reflected, alone on the bridge. He had spent so much of his life following in Arthur's wake. Even after Arthur's death, Merlin's existence revolved around waiting for his fallen king's return. It was nice to leave a wake of his own, to blaze his own trail. His fate had been decided long before he had been born, but at times like this when he etched a shining tail like a comet across the inky galaxy, he felt that he was writing his own destiny. It was a heady thought.

The journey to Athens would take several weeks even on fast burn. Merlin hoped the passengers were at least entertaining. Perhaps Jayne would focus some of his glares at them instead of at Merlin. Zoe hadn't warmed to him either. He understood, he supposed. He was the interloper who had replaced her murdered husband. Simon and Kaylee were utterly absorbed with each other and barely had eyes for anyone else, and River's conversation was incomprehensible as often as not. Merlin felt isolated from the crew, a sense which only intensified as the star system grew smaller and smaller behind him.

Inara took to keeping Merlin company on the bridge, but Merlin noticed that she disappeared rather quickly whenever Reynolds's heavy footsteps approached. He appreciated her presence nonetheless-the sky was vast and lonely, and Inara helped keep the darkness at bay. They swapped stories of their respective times on Sihnon, Merlin careful to edit his tales so as not to give away exactly how long he had spent in the spectacular capital city. He didn't get as much opportunity to interact with the passengers as he would like, however. They were a family: Father, mother, sister, brother. He saw them sometimes in the kitchen where he ate his hurried meals. The brother kept making eyes at him, though, so Merlin made it a point to take longer lunches. He managed to get the young man alone while River took a shift at the helm. Merlin rumpled the man's hair and kissed his lips red, but Inara had the misfortune to interrupt just as his hands made their way under Merlin's shirt. He scurried off, and Merlin ruefully watched him go. Inara smirked, but she promised to keep Merlin's dalliance a secret.

"Not because anyone would actually _care_ that you're-you know _,_ " she clarified. "I mean, I am, too. But Mal would give you hell for having an affair with a passenger, and I don't want you to get in trouble over something so minor. If you're going to piss off Mal, it should be _important_." Her smile turned wicked. "If you do want to antagonize him though, I have a few suggestions…"

Merlin just shook his head and left her to her schemings. He ignored the young man's attempts to corner him in isolated parts of the ship over the next few days, offering nothing but a shrug in explanation. Somehow he had lost his appeal. The family disembarked at Athens, and Merlin didn't feel guilty about never learning the brother's name.

The stop on Athens was brief, just long enough to restock _Serenity_ 's food and fuel. Merlin sat through a lesson on how to treat a gunshot wound in the field while the captain, Zoe, and Jayne were planetside. Simon didn't tell him anything he didn't already know, but Merlin's opinion of the handsome doctor climbed several notches: he was patient when Inara fumbled the gauze, and he didn't snap when Kaylee missed the practice dummy's vein for the umpteenth time.

"Good job, everyone," Simon said at the end of the lesson, exhaustion coloring the edges of his voice. "Next time we'll go over how to set simple fractures." And then it was time to fly to Illyria.

The brief flight passed without incident. Miles unwound themselves before the ship like fibers from an infinite distaff. Daedalus shone, massive and stormy, an inhospitable crown whose moons gleamed like jewels. Illyria crested the horizon, and Merlin guided the ship towards the emerald moon. He didn't notice that the gravity was just slightly higher than expected until it was too late.

Merlin turned on the ship-wide communication system. "I need you on the bridge, Captain," he broadcast.

Reynolds appeared moments later. "Trouble?" he asked.

Merlin nodded. "Something's pulling us in. We're caught in an artificial gravity field. How did anyone all the way out here get the technology for that?"

The captain's face set in grim lines. "They didn't. It's Alliance."

Merlin's gut clenched. "What do the Alliance want with us?" he asked, feigning nonchalance.

"It's probably nothing," Reynolds assured him. "This area's had issues for years. Border conflicts, warlords staging coups. Maybe the Alliance finally decided to pay attention."

Merlin wasn't so sure. He had a bad feeling about the whole situation. "I'm not so sure," he said. "I have a bad feeling about the whole situation."

Reynolds glanced over the ship's monitoring systems. "Any way to get out of it?"

"I already checked," replied Merlin with a shake of his head. "The pull is too strong. _Serenity_ would be ripped to shreds."

The captain pursed his lips in a way that Merlin had come to recognize as his tactical planning face. "Buy me some time," he instructed after a few moments. "Don't try to fight the pull. Just make our descent as slow as you can." He reopened the ship's comm system. "Zoe, Jayne, bridge. Now."

Two pairs of boots clomped heavily down the hallway to the helm. Jayne gave Merlin his customary scowl, but Zoe barely acknowledged his presence. "Something wrong, sir?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"There's Alliance on Illyria. They're pulling us in. Zoe, I need you to tell Kaylee to switch the burn as low as she can. _Yes,_ before we enter the atmosphere. _I know_. Then get the others to the hold before we land. Make sure Inara puts on her prettiest dress. Jayne, move the swords to a more secure location. Wouldn't want them Alliance boys to poke their eyes out."

Jayne smirked and Zoe nodded, and then Merlin and the captain were alone in the bridge again.

"Now, Merlin," and suddenly Reynolds was very close, his voice ghosting along Merlin's ear. "You have a criminal record. Your face is in their computers. And it's going to be flagged, just like mine and Zoe's. I need you to not give them any reason to notice you. Can you do that?"

Merlin wasn't entirely sure why the captain felt the need to stand _right there_ , but he tried not to let the other man's proximity distract him. "Aye, sir, I'll just skulk in the back, shall I? I'm sure that won't look suspicious."

Reynolds spun the pilot's chair around to face him and placed his hands on the armrests, effectively trapping Merlin. "This is not the time to be _flippant_ , son. Alliance don't like me much, and they've got reason to be angry with the rest of the crew as well. When we land, you will shut your mouth and you will not say a _gorram_ thing unless I tell you. Am I understood?"

Merlin glared mutinously but nodded.

"Good." Reynolds must have finally realized that his nose was almost touching Merlin's. He cleared his throat and stepped back. "Program a landing sequence. And make it slow, alright? Make it look like we're landing because we want to, not because of their damn gravity. I want us all in the hold when the Alliance troops board. Can't give them any reason to search the ship."

"Aye," said Merlin, his voice clipped. He spun his chair around with as much dignity as he could muster, and his hands flew over the dashboard. The captain retreated a moment later, but Merlin refused to watch him go.

Inara was indeed wearing her prettiest dress when Merlin stumbled down into the hold. The rich indigo silk was draped around her body like an indecent sari. The smooth expanse of her back was laid bare, and she posed herself to the side of the cargo bay so the troops would be unable to miss the delicate wings of her exposed shoulder-bones as she made her way from her seat to the captain's side. Merlin had to give her credit: she had a flair for the dramatic. Jayne was the last to arrive in the hold, and Reynolds scolded him for the sweat that beaded his brow and stained the collar of his shirt.

"Well maybe I wouldn't be sweatin' so much if I hadn't had to carry all them swords on my own," Jayne retorted, swiping the back of his hand over his forehead.

"We've got a few minutes until landing. Go change your shirt at least," ordered Reynolds.

Jayne ambled off, still grumbling, and returned just before Merlin felt the gentle impact of the ship touching down on solid land. The crew arrayed themselves around the captain, and Merlin did his best to adopt a relaxed yet lofty expression.

A voice boomed through the room. "Firefly-class transport, you are ordered to open your doors and prepare to be boarded."

Inara pressed the button to open the hatch and waited until the first troops stepped through the archway to sweep gracefully to Reynolds's side. A handful of soldiers stormed into the hold and spread out in a loose circle around the crew. A commander boarded next, his red stripes crisp against his grey uniform.

Reynolds stepped forward. "What's the meaning of this, Commander?" His voice held just the barest hint of a challenge.

"You are…" the commander paused to consult a palm-size computer. "Captain Malcolm Reynolds of _Serenity_ , yes?"

Reynolds nodded.

"And your crew consists of Zoe Alleyne Washburne, Jayne Cobb, Kaywinnet Lee Frye, and Simon Tam?"

"Aye."

"River Tam, sister of Simon Tam, is a permanent passenger on this vessel, yes? And Inara Serra rents a shuttle from you, am I correct?"

"You seem to have all the information yourself, sir. Why are you asking me?" Reynolds hooked his thumbs through his belt.

The commander looked up from his computer and scanned the group arrayed in front of him. His eyes focused on Merlin. "Who's this, then?"

"Merlin Emrys," Reynolds said before Merlin could open his mouth. "He's the one who flies this ship."

"Put him with the others for now," the commander instructed. He handed off his little computer to the nearest solder. "Look him up." Then, turning back to the captain: "Malcolm Reynolds, Zoe Alleyne Washburne, Jayne Cobb, Kaywinnet Lee Frye, Simon Tam, River Tam, and Inara Serra, I am placing you under arrest for treason against the Alliance. Tomorrow you will be taken to Londinium where you will be formally charged, tried, and sentenced. _Serenity_ will go to the Alliance fleet." He wrinkled his nose. "Or to a junkyard, as the case may be." Kaylee spluttered in protest, but Reynolds shot her a warning look, and she piped down.

Merlin panicked as the nearest soldier wrenched his arms behind his back and secured them with cold metal handcuffs. He was pretty sure the commander wouldn't be bothered to trace his name all the way back to Earth-That-Was like Reynolds had done, but more recent records-for example, his photo from when he was arrested for protesting Alliance rule-could raise awkward questions. There was nothing to be done now though, so Merlin allowed himself to be marched off _Serenity_ and into the makeshift Alliance base.

The inside of the building was bleak and unremarkable, all utilitarian concrete and steel. Merlin was shoved roughly into a cell. His captor showed him the courtesy of removing his handcuffs before slamming the barred iron door shut and securing it with a padlock. He leaned against the door, threading his arms through the gaps and resting them on a bar, until a soldier jabbed at him with a shotgun and he backed up. Merlin watched as the rest of the crew were forced into the cells along the hall. Two men in brown coats took up positions at either end of the hallway, and the Alliance troops retreated, leaving just the guards, who Merlin assumed must be local law enforcement. One soldier knocked his shoulder against a guard then gave him a brutal shove.

"Out of my way, _browncoat,_ unless you want to be charged with treason, too," the soldier snapped. "Your uniform sure makes you look like a rebel."

"Terribly sorry about that, sir," the guard said. "It's s'posed to be blue, but the tailors have all run out of blue, see. Awful, innit? No blue fabric to be had on the whole of the planet."

The soldier glared down at the man's dark blue trousers, then back up at the guard. He opened his mouth to tell the guard off, but a fellow soldier grabbed his arm and pulled him away.

"Is everyone alright?" Reynolds asked quietly. The guards' eyes flicked to what Merlin had to assume was the captain's cell, but they didn't protest.

A murmured chorus of "aye, sir," and "all good here" and "just dandy" sprang from the row of cells.

"Merlin, anything?"

Merlin knew what Reynolds meant. "No, sir," he answered truthfully. He could maybe use magic to knock out the two guards and pick their pockets for the padlock keys, but what then? The crew would be shot on sight, and Merlin had never quite gotten the hang of invisibility spells. And there was still the matter of having no weapons and no way of retaking the ship from the swarm of Alliance. He retreated to the corner of his cell and leaned his head tiredly against the rough concrete wall. He didn't move until the commander bustled in, unaccompanied save for his little handheld computer.

The commander squinted hard at the screen and then back up at Merlin. "A Merlin Emrys was arrested on Sihnon just over fifty years ago. Funny thing, he looks just like you too. Grandfather, I'm guessing?"

Merlin nodded and tried not to let his relief show on his face. "All the men in my family are named Merlin. Old tradition. Makes family gatherings awkward, I can tell you!" His laugh sounded strained, but the other man didn't seem to notice.

"You're free to go, Mr. Emrys," the commander said absently, already turning to leave. "You may claim your possessions from the storeroom. Mr… Uh…" he trailed off, looking at the guard who had been battered earlier.

"Corey, sir," the guard supplied.

"Mr. Corey here will show you the way." He fixed Merlin with a glare. "Do be careful to take your things and _only_ your things. The personal possessions of the rest of the crew of _Serenity_ are now the property of the Alliance. You're lucky you're not being held for conspiracy with traitors, and I will not hesitate to charge you with theft if even a sock goes missing that shouldn't be."

 _Traitors?_ Merlin nodded once more, and the commander spun on his heel and stalked away. Corey pulled a ring of keys from his belt, selected the appropriate one for Merlin's lock, and swung the door open.

"Follow me, then," Corey said cheerfully. He gave no sign of being injured in the earlier tussle and led Merlin briskly deeper into the complex. The concrete gave way to brick and flagstone and haphazard rugs, and assorted uniformed people-both Alliance and local law-bustled to and fro.

"Is your shoulder alright?" asked Merlin as they turned down a deserted corridor.

"Takes more'n one puffed-up purple-belly to knock me down." Corey waved away Merlin's concern. "Fought better'n him in the war, and I'm still here, ain't I?"

"You fought for the Independents?" Merlin asked politely. It seemed the thing to do.

"Oh, aye!" exclaimed Corey. "Pains me to see Alliance in here struttin' around like they own the place, it does."

"I'm no fan of them either," said Merlin with a rueful laugh.

"And your Cap'n, he's wearing a brown coat. Them soldiers said his name's Reynolds, is that right? As in Sergeant Reynolds?"

"Well, he isn't a sergeant nowadays, but I think he was during the war."

"Ain't that something, then," Corey said after a pause. "I was at Serenity Valley too, ya know. My unit got bombed and evac-ed on the second day though. Lost my leg, or I'd've hopped out of the shuttle and joined the battle again." He bent his leg and tapped on his knee. It rang hollowly: a prosthetic. "From what I hear, that cap'n of yours damn near won the battle all on his own."

Merlin shrugged. "Zoe helped a bit too, to hear them tell it. She was a corporal in Reynolds's unit."

"Zoe, the dark woman in the leather? Damn…" Corey sighed. "They fought so hard for us folk on the border planets. Seems a shame I can't repay them. Alliance don't do nothing for us. They let us starve and die, and they don't care none that Reaver space is pushing closer every year. They just swanned in here a few days ago without even a _by-your-leave_ and force us to house and feed them for free. Don't even bring their own _gorram_ supplies."

Inspiration struck Merlin like a drum and the beginnings of a plan for salvation reverberated through his mind. "Mr. Corey," he said slowly. "Do you know anything about why they set up here so suddenly?"

The other man shrugged and turned down another corridor. "Overheard something about an operative and a bug when I was fetching coffee for that commander. Bastard thinks he can just order anyone around. I don't answer to him…" Corey's muttered complaints continued, but Merlin didn't listen.

A bug. _A bug a bug a bug. Of course._ The crew were too canny to allow themselves to be bugged-the passengers then, and a bug. The operative must have slipped it onto one of them before they boarded on Muir. Had it been the brother? Merlin remembered his fling with the young man, remembered the things they had whispered in each other's ears, and his stomach twisted. Were their words stored on some Alliance computer somewhere, perhaps being dissected and mocked by derisive men in red stripes?

"Well, here's the storeroom." Corey derailed Merlin's train of thought. "Get your things; I'll wait here. Damn building's a maze; you'd get lost on your own."

Merlin jerkily nodded his thanks and pushed open the door. A young clerk sat at a desk directly in front of him, her hair in a messy braid and her thick glasses slipping down her nose as she flicked through a pile of paperwork. She didn't notice Merlin's entrance until he gave a polite cough.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, her glasses sliding fully off as she looked up sharply. She scrambled for her glasses and perched them precariously on her nose. "Who're you then?" she asked.

"Merlin Emrys," he said. "I'm part of _Serenity_ 's crew. The commander said I could collect my things."

"Oh, er, yes," said the young woman. She pulled a leaf of paper from the bottom of the pile in front of her, scrawled her signature on it twice with a pen that she produced from behind her ear, and shoved it at Merlin. "Sign here please. And here."

Merlin obeyed.

"Right then," she said, squinting at Merlin's signatures. "Seems to be in order." She tore the paper in two and handed one half to Merlin. "Go through to the back"-she indicated a door to her left-"and give this to Julie. She'll be at the table on the left. One of you _Serenity_ folk had a right funny suitcase. She's still trying to pry the _gorram_ thing open. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"No! No, of course not," Merlin gasped. "We don't make a habit of going through each other's belongings."

"Yes, well," the clerk said after a tense pause. "I'm sure the clasps are just stiff. Go on now, shoo. I have work to do." She looked down at her paperwork once more and utterly dismissed Merlin from her world.

Merlin did his best not to bolt through the door into the main storage area. Julie was indeed at the table on the left, the suitcase containing Arthur's remains clenched in a vise as the woman tried to hack the fastenings off with what looked like a machete. Merlin had a sudden vision of the suitcase imploding and spewing ancient bones everywhere, and he gave up all pretense of composure and hurtled to Julie's side.

"That's _mine, thank_ you," Merlin grit out as he elbowed Julie away. "Here. This is from… whoever." He shoved the scrap of paper with his and the clerk's signatures into Julie's face, heedless of her machete, and flopped his hand uselessly in the direction of the front desk. "Now get my suitcase _out of there._ "

Julie's eyes were wide and scared. "Right you are," she squeaked, and hurried to release the vise.

Merlin snatched his luggage up and inspected the surface for dents or scratches. He couldn't find any, and his anger with Julie subsided. "Where are the rest of the effects from _Serenity_?" he asked.

Julie pointed a shaky finger towards a massive heap of furniture, bedding, cutlery, dishware, books, and clothes. Merlin sighed. It looked like the soldiers had stripped _Serenity_ of everything that wasn't bolted down and piled it all here after confiscating the food and weapons. It would take him ages to find all of his grimoires, and he knew he had no choice but to track down every last book _._ He was almost sure that the Alliance wouldn't bother trying to translate the ancient spells, but it wasn't a chance he was ready to take.

"Funny thing, you know," said Julie at Merlin's side. He hadn't heard her approach. "Them Alliance boys brought in a whole mess of weird books. I mean, really _weird_. I couldn't read them-they were in some foreign language, something I'd never even seen before. A nightmare to file, they'll be. And they looked old. Maybe even old enough to be from Earth-That-Was." She turned her huge brown eyes to Merlin. "But they was just sittin' in someone's room. They weren't secured or nothin'. You'd think something as valuable as those books would be cherished."

"I know." Merlin's voice came out as a whisper. "Those are mine. They're not valuable to anyone but me. Family heirlooms, you know? I can't read them either. I don't think anyone can." A blatant lie, but Julie didn't seem to notice. "But they've been passed down for generations. Could you help me find them? It would mean the world to me." He gave the young woman his best pleading gaze, and she melted.

"Sure thing," she said with a smile. "I'll probably catch hell for it, helpin' you instead of cataloguin', but folk 'round here don't have much love for the Alliance. And I heard that your Cap'n Reynolds was a Browncoat."

"Word travels fast here, I see," said Merlin as he began to sift through the undignified pile. "He and Zoe both."

Julie nodded sagely. "I was too young to fight, just thirteen. Otherwise I'da signed up for the Independents."

"Well _certainly_ they would have won with you on their side." Merlin's words came out more biting than he meant, and he shot the young woman a smile to soothe the sting.

Julie just snorted and chucked an ancient text at him. Merlin's gut froze as he fumbled the catch, but he caught the book by the tips of his fingers, and Julie didn't seem to notice his moment of panic. "I ain't foolin' myself," she said. "I woulda been worse than useless in a battle. Prob'ly blow my own fingers off with one a'them shotguns. I ain't even allowed to hunt, see, 'cause I'm _a danger to myself and others._ " She mockingly sketched air quotes, but she seemed to be holding back tears. "But maybe I coulda taken a bullet meant for a better person. Maybe I coulda helped that way."

Merlin was almost overwhelmed by the need to gather the young woman up and kiss away all of her pains. "Not a fan of the Alliance, then?" he asked instead, adding another book to his pile.

Julie shook her head. "My brother died fighting for the Independents," she said, and Merlin knew whose bullet she wished she had been able to take. "I hate that the Alliance is here. I hate that I have to follow their orders." Her eyes gleamed with rebellion then. "Fuck the commander. Take whatever you want from here, I'll sign off that it's yours. Ain't much else I can do, but at least I can do that."

Merlin was stunned. Allies were popping out of the woodwork all on their own, and he didn't even need to cajole or bribe. "You know, there might be something more you can do," he mused. "Only if you're willing, of course."

Julie nodded eagerly, and Merlin laughed. "You don't have to answer just yet," he said. "At least let me tell you what I'm thinking before you make any promises."

"Whatever it is, I'll help," said Julie without hesitation. "Anything to put a thorn in the Alliance's side. For my brother."

"I need to know how this place is heated in the winter."

"Dangerous levels of carbon monoxide detected in Wing 4," a feminine robotic voice blared. "Please evacuate immediately." The message repeated in Mandarin.

Merlin lounged nonchalantly in a corner near the jail block's exit, waiting for the parade of evacuating prisoners to pass him by. They were handcuffed once again. He coughed quietly when Reynolds and Corey were in view and tipped them a wink. Reynolds's eyes widened, and Corey smirked. Soon afterwards, Reynolds stumbled, and Merlin saw a flash of silver pass between the two men as the guard steadied him. The keys subtly made their way down the line of _Serenity_ prisoners, and the locals looked the other way.

Merlin slipped away to a nearby broom closet and took several deep, steadying breaths. His magic purred at his touch like a great golden cat, and he focused all of his attention on the spell. He hadn't attempted anything like this in a long time, but the magic was eager. Merlin cast his awareness down, down beneath the flagstones, down to the very soul of the earth, which he found pliant to his touch. He summoned a tempest there beneath the ground and was pleased with the answering rumble.

The first shockwave surged upward and shook the foundations of the building. Merlin heard panicked exclamations, and an alarm blared moments later. Crashes reverberated through the building as shelves toppled, and a few cracks webbed out from weaker sections of walls and ceilings. People scurried back and forth, trying to find the nearest exit. A few Alliance officers did their best to organize the commotion, but the locals paid them no mind.

Merlin maintained his focus, keeping the tremors from spreading too far, and followed the gaudy flash of Inara's dress outside. When he emerged blinking into the light, he saw Corey hustling the crew towards _Serenity_. He caught up and overtook them, careful not to let them see his eyes stained gold with magic. "This way!" he called back to them over the ominous creaking of the building and the fearful chatter of the people still fleeing. He pulled another shockwave from the trembling earth, and the Alliance and lawmen were too preoccupied with finding safer ground to pay any mind to the escaping prisoners.

A sharp whistle rent the air, and Merlin spied Julie waving frantically from the shelter of an overgrown shrubbery. The reason for her alarm was evident: Not more than a hundred yards away, a few dedicated Alliance soldiers still guarded _Serenity_ , but they didn't appear to have noticed the crew. Merlin supposed they had been far enough away from his epicenter to not feel the shaking. Perhaps they thought the evacuation was due to the carbon monoxide leak-they must have been alerted.

Merlin made his way over to Julie's hiding spot, allowing the tremors to subside momentarily in the interest of speed. Julie had done well. True to her word, she had stuffed anything from the heap of possessions that looked personal or precious-pictures, books, diaries, the late Wash's plush dinosaurs which Zoe still treasured-into a handful of backpacks she had pinched from Requisitions. Merlin slung a pack over his shoulders and picked up his suitcase.

"Took you long enough," groused Jayne as he stumbled behind the bush. "We were in those cells for hours. Thought you'd left us."

"Why? Because that's what you'd do?" Merlin shot back.

Jayne looked stunned, then burst into laughter. "Kid's got a spine after all," he said between chuckles.

"Enough of that," ordered the captain, but Merlin could see a smile hiding at the corners of his mouth. "I take it these are our personal effects?"

"It isn't much," Julie babbled. "Just what Merlin said was important. I had to pack light, see, and the pillows and blankets and chairs and such wouldn't really fit, and the things are all jumbled up inside I'm sure because I've no way of knowing what's whose…"

Merlin grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a bruisingly hard kiss. "You did brilliantly," he said. "Now, go. Get to safety. I don't think the earthquake is over yet. Don't worry about those soldiers. We can handle them. _Go_."

Julie, still dazed from their kiss, nodded and sped after the last few evacuees just visible on the ridge of a nearby hill.

Merlin crawled forward and pushed a few branches out of his face. _Serenity_ was parked on a grassy field which provided a perfect landing site but was less than ideal for an ambush. They would have no cover if they rushed the soldiers, and they'd be mowed down before they could take more than a few strides. So a frontal assault wouldn't work, and neither would stealth. _What does that leave? Think. Think!_

"What's he doin'?" Jayne's rough whisper came from behind him. "Oi. What're you doin'?"

"Thinking," Merlin said.

"Cap'n! Why are we following him? Who put him in charge?"

"I got you this far, didn't I?" Merlin snapped. "Now shut up. I've got a plan." He called to the magic once more and shook the ground beneath _Serenity_. The guards' cries of alarm carried to Merlin, but they weren't running, so he shook the ground again, harder. His magic, so long bottled up and only let out a trickle at a time, rose eagerly to do his bidding-too eagerly. Instead of calling a gentle but persistent tremor, it split open a yawning mouth, and the flat plane of the field tilted alarmingly.

" _Fuck!_ " Merlin swore, even as he grappled for control, but the magic ran rampant. More cracks spread spiderweb-like out from the epicenter. "Fuck the plan," he shouted to the others over the tortured gasps of the earth. "Just get to the ship! Bloody _run!_ "

The crew scrambled over the dangerously marred field. River stumbled, but Simon and Jayne dragged her up between them. Even as he ran, Merlin grappled for control, and finally he gained some measure of command over the swiftly tilting moon. It wasn't total mastery, far from it, but it was enough.

Luckily the Alliance hadn't bothered to lock up _Serenity_. Simon shoved River through the doors first, then turned to help the other women up the treacherous ramp. Reynolds was the second-last on the ship, just before Merlin. Merlin reached for the captain's outstretched hand, but the ground bucked beneath his feet and threw him down. He landed hard on his back, and the air whooshed out of him. The ground shuddered as his control slipped, and a sheared-off cliff rose in front of him. Merlin wheezed and tried to stand, but the world spun until he didn't know which way was up. He felt himself slide, and he scrabbled desperately for a handhold. His fingers felt clumsy and unresponsive, so he focused the shreds of his will, and a narrow shelf jutted out beneath his feet.

A rough hand clasped Merlin's shoulder, and he looked up to see Reynolds's face crowned by the sun. "Come on," the captain yelled, and he all but dragged Merlin bodily to the ship. The grass was slippery though, and he wasn't making enough headway. Merlin gestured feebly, and a series of ledges burst through the ground like a ladder. Reynolds swore in surprise but didn't stop, and then there were hands everywhere, more than Merlin could count, pulling him on board to safety.

Merlin wanted to collapse, but the ground was still shaking itself apart, and there was no time to lose. He shrugged off the steadying hands and sprinted to the helm, and he didn't let himself feel anything until _Serenity_ was safely out of the atmosphere.

Later-Merlin wasn't sure how much-the captain ducked into the helm. The room was lit only by the twinkling stars just on the other side of the window and a single bulb which glowed like a candle. The starry miles passed, slow and cold and empty, undulating like some sinuous sea creature.

"Where are we going?" Merlin asked without turning around. "I've laid in a route for Newhope. We can restock there, maybe re-furnish the ship. Or wherever you say, I can reprogram the course."

Reynolds didn't reply, and Merlin swiveled to look at him after a few moments.

"Sir?" said Merlin.

The captain walked stiffly to the co-pilot's chair and eased himself down. "That sounds fine," he said, his voice robotic. He stayed silent for a few more moments, but Merlin could tell he was working up to something. "Merlin, I-"

"What did the commander mean by _treason_ , sir?" Merlin cut him off.

Reynolds's mouth shut with an audible click, and his face set into bleak lines.

"I think I deserve to know."

"Oh, is that what you think?" Reynolds scoffed.

"Aye."

"Anyone ever tell you it's weird when you say that? It just don't sound right, coming from you. You're too… posh."

Despite himself, Merlin laughed. "Me, posh? I'll have you know, I'm nothing more than a backwards country peasant."

"You're much more than that," said Reynolds, unconsciously echoing River's earlier words, and Merlin shivered but didn't allow himself to be sidetracked.

"Why did the Alliance arrest you and the others for treason, sir?" he asked.

"P'raps because we committed treason."

"And what _exactly_ was the nature of your treason?"

"Just a dog with a bone, ain't you, son?" Reynolds sighed. "You remember that wave a while back, the one that appeared on just about every _gorram_ screen in the 'Verse? The one that showed what happened to the Miranda colonists?" He waited for Merlin to nod before continuing. "We were the ones as publicised it."

" _God,_ " Merlin whispered. "No wonder they want you in prison. I'm surprised they didn't pull you in before. You probably struck the biggest blow to their rule since unification."

"They've tried to catch us before, but we were always able to get out in time." Reynolds frowned. "How _did_ they get us? They must have known we were headed for Illyria. It takes time to transport all those men and set up the gravity generator out here."

"Corey, that guard, you know? He overheard something about an operative and a bug," Merlin said. "Some Alliance spy must have recognized _Serenity_ on Muir and slipped the bug onto one of the passengers. I guess it overheard us talking about Illyria at some point."

The captain nodded and subsided into silence, but Merlin could tell he was stewing.

"Out with it then," Merlin said.

"Are you giving me an order, _Mer_ lin?" asked Reynolds.

"Aye, sir. You want to say something to me. Say it."

Reynolds let out a torrent of Mandarin profanity.

"Well, you're not wrong, sir," said Merlin when he was done.

Reynolds just glowered, but his expression gradually smoothed. "It was just a bit of a shock, that's all," he said, gazing at the stars. "Seeing… magic. I knew you had it, of course, but it's different somehow. That _earthquake,_ Merlin. I never expected to see you really let loose."

Merlin dropped all pretense at controlling the ship and turned to face his captain fully. "You didn't," he whispered, and Reynolds abandoned his starlight vigil to stare back at Merlin. "And I hope you never have to."

Reynolds furrowed his brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Means what I said. Magic is _dangerous._ People _die_ when I let loose. I don't want you to see me like that. You're the first person I've told… well, I suppose I didn't really tell you about my magic, did I?" The corner of Merlin's mouth tugged upward. "You're the first person who knows since Arthur. I don't want you to think I'm a monster."

"I've seen a fair few monsters, in the war and not," said Reynolds after a pause. "They don't look like you, son."

"Of course they don't," Merlin said. "They'd be entirely too easy to spot with ears like mine."

Reynolds laughed and reached up to tug on one of Merlin's overgrown ears, and the tension mounting in the helm broke with an inaudible sigh. "We lost the cargo. Alliance must have done their homework. They found where Jayne hid the swords."

"That's too bad, sir," Merlin said. "It would have been a well-paying job. Want me to wave the buyer and let him know what happened?"

"No, no. I'll do it myself." Reynolds didn't seem excited at the prospect. "So, Newhope then? That's good. Not much of an Alliance presence there, and we'll be able to find a job."

"How are the others? Anyone hurt?"

"Not seriously. River skinned her knee, and Kaylee is a bit shaken." He heaved a deep sigh. "Look, I don't like to gossip, but Simon's been putting some facts together. Sharp one, that doctor. He asked me earlier if there was _more to you than meets the eye,_ _like River_. Guess the highly convenient timing of that earthquake was the final piece of his puzzle. I told him it was a conversation he ought to have with you, so I'd expect a few awkward questions within the next few days."

"What should I tell him?"

"That's up to you, son. Simon won't like keeping secrets, mind, 'specially from our Kaylee."

Merlin had no reply to that. Whereof he cannot speak, thereof he must be silent.

The captain left not long after, and Merlin sat alone in the dim and thought. The cabin remained empty for some time. He wondered if he was ready for more people to know. He wondered if _people_ were ready to know. He hadn't told anybody after Arthur's death, but he hadn't needed to. Clever Gwen had figured it out on her own. Merlin had stayed in Camelot just long enough to help her lift the ban on magic and draft laws to regulate it without stifling its use. He left soon afterward. The castle was too haunted for him to find peace there.

Lord Tennyson had gotten a few things wrong. Merlin hadn't found the Gleam until after Arthur's death. He had pursued it across the land, half-mad with desire and desperation. The Gleam became absolution for him, a sacrament, something pure and holy that would make all the betrayal worth it, if he could just _catch up…_

He never did catch up, of course. He was never supposed to. The Gleam came to him instead, after people chewed up the Earth and vomited her out in shapes of their own desires. It rested upon his forehead, too tired to actually gleam, though Merlin thought he could feel it twitch sometimes. Merlin understood that no matter where he went, he followed. He followed it first to Albion and then to Avalon and then all across the 'Verse, wherever he wanted to go. His freedom rankled. Even in admitting defeat, the Gleam had _won_.

The hell with it, Merlin decided. It might take him two thousand years, but he could learn. Damned if he was going to repeat the mistakes he made in the past. He would answer Simon's questions truthfully and in good faith, though he would still prefer to avoid the conversation entirely. That decided, Merlin set _Serenity_ to autopilot and stumbled off to bed.

That night-though _night_ was a relative term-his sleep was restless and plagued with nightmares he couldn't quite remember. Merlin felt even less rested when he awoke in the morning, but Newhope was waiting. He ate a hurried breakfast and then made his way to the helm. He was just congratulating himself on avoiding Simon when the doctor slipped into the co-pilot's seat.

Simon sat in awkward silence for a few minutes, watching the chicory of Newhope bloom, before he spoke. "I've seen some strange things in my life. Things I'd never have thought possible if I hadn't witnessed them myself. Especially since joining up with Mal." He chuckled. "And River's got a way of showing me that things aren't always as simple as I think. You remind me of her a lot, actually. You might have noticed that River is… different. She has certain powers that could at first could appear-supernatural-in origin but were actually developed through unethical and entirely inhumane experimentation from the Alliance. So, given the earthquake yesterday and the way River reacted to your touch, I was wondering…" He hesitated, obviously steeling himself.

 _Here it comes,_ thought Merlin.

"Are you psychic?" the doctor blurted.

Merlin let out a short, sharp laugh. The question was so close to the one Simon should have asked, but it skimmed in the wrong direction like a flat rock over a lake. "No," he answered. "I'm not psychic."

"But you're not, well, _normal,_ right?"

Merlin frowned but shook his head. "No, I guess I'm not."

"What are you, then?"

"I'm human, just like you and River." Merlin felt slightly stung.

Simon had the grace to look abashed. "Right, of course you are. But you still have _powers_ , don't you? I mean, you knew the earthquake yesterday was going to happen. That's why you waited to trigger the carbon monoxide alarm until just before the earthquake, so we'd be able to escape in the chaos."

"I didn't know the earthquake was going to happen, no."

Simon gaped in dismay. "So it was just a coincidence?"

"No, it wasn't a coincidence." Merlin heaved a sigh. "I don't know how much to tell you."

"Everything. I want to know anything you'll tell me." Simon was almost adorably eager, and Merlin threw caution out the window and watched it burn in the ship's wake.

"I caused the earthquake."

Simon blinked several times. "Oh, you hacked the gravity field generator? Mal said you were good with computers, but that's way beyond good."

"No," Merlin said. "I _caused_ the earthquake."

"You… oh." Simon took a very deep breath and let it out slowly. "You mean to say-you're telling me that you-you're-"

"Yes. That's what I'm telling you."

"That's what River said, Kaylee told me. You're like her, but more," said Simon.

"Aye."

"So what can you do?"

Merlin laughed, remembering when Reynolds had asked him the same thing but had sought a different answer-or, now that he thought about it, maybe the answer Reynolds wanted hadn't been so different after all. "There's not a whole lot I _can't_ do. Teleportation, flying, resurrection, invisibility, and mind-reading are all no-gos, at least so far. Turning back time, too, but I can stop it briefly. I can't do anything like walk through walls, and I've never been good at healing. And-oh!" Merlin brightened. "I've been learning how to shapeshift. It takes a lot of energy, and I can't take many other forms, but I only learned recently and I'm thinking that in a few more years if I keep practicing maybe I'll be able to…" He broke off when he saw Simon's expression. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Simon reassured him. "It's a lot to take in, is all. I mean, you're a… what's the term, exactly?"

"Wizard, sorcerer, mage, warlock. Any of the above can apply, though if you want to get technical they're all slightly different."

"Really? What's the difference?" Merlin opened his mouth to answer, but Simon cut him off. "Never mind, not important right now. I still don't really understand what you can do. That earthquake was just… _incredible._ "

"Elemental magic is easy," Merlin said. It was almost a relief to talk about his abilities plainly, without the allegories that Reynolds had needed just after Merlin confessed his sorcerous nature or the constant warnings and cautions that Gaius had given him. "It's simple. There's spells for it, but a lot of times spells just focus energy. They don't actually make anything happen on their own, they act as a sort of, I don't know, water pipe. The energy is in one place, see, like a water tower or a reservoir. And the spell is like the pipes that take the water to the pump. Whatever you use the water for, that's the end result, that's whatever you were trying to do with the spell. For elemental magic, I don't always need the pipes. They're helpful so I don't make a mistake or lose control, and they're more precise. But in the end, I can usually do without."

"Is that… Well, I suppose we're a bit beyond _normal,_ aren't we?" Simon chuckled. "But is that usual? To not need spells?"

"No," Merlin said. "Most magic-users rely on spells. The way it works is, you're born with magic, but usually it's not very powerful. Just little things, like having visions of the future in your dreams, or being really good with animals. But you have the energy, and that's what's important. Spells allow you to channel that energy to do things that you wouldn't be able to do with your magic alone."

"So how powerful are you?" Simon's voice was quiet. "How much _energy_ do you have?"

"A lot. More than anyone has had in a long time." It was almost the truth. Merlin wasn't quite ready to tell Simon everything.

"You said elemental magic is easy. Why is that? And what _exactly_ is elemental magic?"

"I'm not _exactly_ sure," Merlin replied, slightly irritated at Simon's tone. "Of either question, really. What I call elemental magic involves the four classical elements, but I've been able to adapt it a bit to work on things like glass and iron and certain gases."

"But there's a hundred twenty elements!" Simon protested.

"Well yes, I know that, obviously." Merlin's irritation grew. "Magic predates the periodic table, Simon. It's not _logical._ It just _is._ I don't know why I can conjure fire but not plutonium. I just know that I _can_."

"I suppose you'll want me to keep this a secret, won't you?" Simon looked slightly miserable and slightly hopeful at the prospect.  
Merlin found that he didn't care. "No," he said. "Tell whoever you want. Tell everyone, if you'd like. I'm sick of hiding from everyone. And I trust you. All of you, I mean." It was true. Merlin trusted the doctor and Kaylee and Zoe and River and even sour-tempered Jayne. They were all united together under their captain's banner, their captain whom Merlin knew they would all follow into the mouth of Hell, a miniature Light Brigade. Well, maybe more like a Skulking-in-the-Shadows Brigade, considering their profession. Theirs was not to question why. Merlin smiled inwardly. That had never stopped him.

"I need a bit of time to process this," Simon said. "But-and this might sound rude-would you terribly mind if I did some tests? Nothing painful or invasive, of course, just measuring your metabolism and heart rate while you cast a spell, and other tests like that."

Merlin had considered running similar tests on himself before as technology developed through the years, but he had never gotten around to it. Ironic, seeing as all he had was time. He informed the doctor as such. "That would be fine, I think. I'm curious as well."

Simon smiled then. "I should really go check on Kaylee. I think prison changed her." He widened his eyes comically, and Merlin laughed.

Merlin turned his full attention back to piloting after Simon made his exit. Newhope was fast approaching. "Slow burn, please, Kaylee," he said through the comm system, and he slipped through the atmosphere like a needle through silk, the wake of the ship leaving behind a golden thread that stitched him to the sky.

Not enough people roamed the streets for the city to really bustle, but it tried its hardest. Vendors hawked their wares at the top of their lungs, which was really rather unnecessary given the sparse population of the marketplace, Merlin thought, and the few groups of people stomped especially loudly as though to make up for missing neighbors. Children seemed overly rambunctious and their games required excessive shrieking. The effect overall was that of a town which generated entirely too much noise.

"Wheat and barley, getcher wheat and barley here!" screeched the nearest vendor loudly enough to make Merlin jump.

Not to be outdone, the next shopkeeper screamed equally loudly: "Carrots, p'taters, radishes, and turnips! I got all kindsa roots! Carrots, p'taters, radishes, and turnips! Any kinda root you please!"

River covered her ears miserably, and even Zoe's impassive mask cracked with irritation.

"You two," Reynolds indicated Merlin and Kaylee, "come with me. We need to find fuel cells. Zoe!" Reynolds had to shout to make himself heard over the din. "Take everyone else to get food, bedding, and kitchen supplies. Inara, I have decided to see this as an opportunity to redecorate. Put your _education_ to good use and make the place, I don't know, more like a home."

Inara seemed uncertain about whether the captain was joking or not, but she nodded just the same. Zoe strode away with a quiet _yes sir_ and the others followed after.

"Li'l Kaylee, how's the engine? Need any more parts?"

"Running smooth as a whistle, Cap'n," said Kaylee with a bright smile.

Reynolds raised his eyebrows. "That's a first. Let's hope our luck holds." He led the little group through the alleys of the open-air bazaar to where ships' innards gleamed dully in the mid-morning sunshine. He found the fuel cells he needed and promptly engaged the merchant in a bout of unnecessarily loud haggling. Surrounding merchants, excited at the prospect of a customer, scrambled to exhibit their best wares.

Kaylee wandered to the next stall and ran her finger over a newly-displayed length of tubing. "This cooling drive look funny to you?" she asked, and then everything tilted sideways. Merlin only had time for the most basic of protection spells before a massive cushion of air picked him up and deposited him smartly ten yards away. His ears rang, his vision blurred, and he succumbed to fuzzy unconsciousness.

 _Light. Light and gold._

"...I crown thee Arthur Pendragon, King of all Albion!" Merlin settled the heavy crown on Arthur's head, never doubting that his friend was strong enough to bear its weight.

 _Light. Warm and heavy as pure gold, and angels sing softly._

But this scene wasn't how it happened. Merlin didn't crown Arthur; Merlin didn't stand beside him in rich blue robes with a crown of ivy resting on his overlarge ears as their people cheered for them. It was wrong, false.

 _Wasn't it?_

Merlin came around slowly in bits and pieces. His head hurt, and he groaned and rubbed his hand over his face. His fingers came away bloody.

"You're awake," Kaylee said from somewhere behind him. "Good. I was worried."

Merlin spat out a mouthful of blood. "Where are we?"

"Dunno," said Kaylee with a shrug. She glanced around the sparse room. "Cap'n was here earlier, but a few men dragged him out. No screams though, so that's gotta be a good sign, right?" She smiled bravely.

Merlin tried to sit up, but his body immediately informed him that it would much prefer to remain prone. Kaylee let out a sympathetic hiss and pulled an oil-blackened rag from a pocket. She dabbed gently at Merlin's face.

"There," she murmured a few minutes later. "'Ccording to Simon, head wounds always bleed a lot. It don't look too deep though."

"Thanks," Merlin said. "What happened?"

"Guess the cooling drive was a bomb," answered Kaylee pensively. "We were right at the center of the explosion. If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead. Means they want us alive for some reason." She didn't look entirely comforted by the fact.

"Are you alright?"

"Me? Oh, I'm fine, no concussion or nothin', I reckon. I'm just worried 'bout Mal." She looked at Merlin strangely then. "Say, you ever been here before? Only one a' them guys said something funny when they came in to take Mal away. He looked at you and said _you think it's really him?_ And the other said _must be, boss says so_. And then the first said to check the older records, just to make sure."

Merlin furrowed his brow. "I've never been to Newhope. Closest I've been before the job on Illyria was Conrad, and that was only for an hour. I didn't even leave the ship."

Kaylee was silent for a few moments. Then: "What's a pen dragon, anyways? Is it like a penknife? You were talking about it before you woke up. It seemed kind of important."

A coughing fit overtook Merlin. "Nothing!" he forced out. "I mean-uh-it's a dragon! For pens."

"A dragon for… pens?" Kaylee repeated skeptically.

"Yes." Merlin's voice steadied. "It's a penholder in the shape of a dragon. They were popular on Bellerophon when I worked there."

"Really? Why?"

Merlin blew out a gust of air and shrugged. "Rich people," he said as if it were all the explanation needed, and apparently it was.

Kaylee nodded sagely and scooted back to lean against a wall, twisting the bloodied rag in her fingers.

"We'll be okay," Merlin whispered to her, though he didn't feel nearly as certain as he sounded. The important thing was to keep their spirits up. "The others will find us. Or we can fight our way free, if we have to."

Kaylee looked slightly ill. "I'm not so good in fights," she said nervously, and clutched the rag to her chest like a shield. "Last time I had to fight, I couldn't. I just- I froze. River had to save me."

Merlin crawled-he didn't think he could handle standing just yet-to her side and leaned back against the wall. The chilly metal soothed the throb of his head, and after a few moments he felt steadier. "Well, I _am_ good in fights," he reassured Kaylee. "And so is the captain. We'll get out of here, I promise."

Kaylee sniffled and pillowed her head on Merlin's shoulder. They sat like that in silence, and Merlin lost track of time. He wasn't sure if minutes or hours had passed when the door burst open and two men in mismatched fatigues shoved Reynolds through. The captain stumbled and fell to his knees, and Kaylee rushed to him with a cry of distress. Reynolds's shirt lay open at the front, and Merlin could see angry red stripes and lurid bruises on his chest and stomach. He had been tortured then. Maybe they would all be tortured, one by one. _What was the point? What were they looking for?_

"Come on then, you," one of the fatigued men said. He had a nasty-looking scar, and Merlin promptly dubbed him Scar. Scar and Knuckles, who Merlin noticed had abnormally large knuckles, grabbed Merlin's biceps and hauled him to his feet. He looked back to reassure Kaylee, but the door slammed closed before he could say anything. The men didn't loosen their grip as they marched him down the hallway. Merlin worried briefly that they would leave bruises, but he figured, given Reynolds's treatment, that being manhandled was the least of his concerns.

The men didn't take Merlin to a ghastly torture chamber, as he had feared. Instead, they shoved him into a cozy sitting room with several plush armchairs and a flowering potted plant. "Sit," growled Scar. He and Knuckles shoved Merlin hard enough that he stumbled, then backed away to take up watchful positions on either side of the door.

"Is this him?" A thin, quavery voice floated from the direction of the armchair facing away from Merlin.

"Yessir," answered Knuckles.

"Good, good. You may go," the voice said.

Knuckles took half a step forward. "Sir?"

"Go! I'll be quite safe, I assure you."

Knuckles didn't appear to be reassured, but his face looked like it had the same capability for displays of emotion as a brick wall. He shuffled out of the room after Scar without any further protests.

"Please, take a seat." A withered hand appeared from behind the armchair and gestured to Merlin.

Merlin paced across the room and sank into the indicated chair. Across from him sat an aging man with steel-grey hair and an impressively bushy handlebar moustache. He revealed a gold tooth when he lifted his lip to leer at Merlin. A snake-headed walking stick leaned against the chair at his side.

"Recognize me, _boy_?" the man sneered.

Merlin shook his head. He was quite certain he had never seen the other man before in his life.

The old man reached into a sack at his feet, and a protective spell leapt unbidden to Merlin's lips. The man didn't produce a weapon, however, only a smirking mask with a slender moustache and goatee. He strapped the mask onto his face. "How about now?"

Merlin dredged the name up from the well of his memory. "Roger."

"Got it in one!" Roger said. "Though with the mask, of course, I'm supposed to be _Anonymous_. Wasn't that the whole point?"

"Aye," Merlin whispered. He felt sick.

Roger tore the mask off and kicked it away. The immortalized face of Guy Fawkes landed by Merlin's feet, staring up at him mockingly. "Want to tell me why exactly you ratted me out?"

"I didn't rat you out," said Merlin. "We don't even know if there _was_ a rat."

" _You ruined my life!"_ Roger said, spittle flying from his wrinkled lips. He pushed himself halfway out of his armchair. "I don't care what you say; I know it was you. My wife _died_ while I was in prison. They took my daughter away when they arrested me. She heard her dad was a criminal, a fuck-up, and now she doesn't want anything to do with me. I had to leave Sihnon after they let me go. I couldn't find a job on the inner planets. I had to come out here like some… some _lowlife,_ like some _colonist._ Everything that's happened to me, it's all your fault!"

Merlin let the man scream himself hoarse. When his tirade finally stopped, Merlin cut in. "I didn't betray you. I don't know who did, but it wasn't me. _I_ got caught too, remember?"

Roger snorted. "Yeah, and you escaped not ten minutes later. I saw you scarper away without a care. You didn't even look back. You couldn't spare half a second to think of me, you self-absorbed nitwit!"

Merlin saw red. "Well maybe if you had fucking _stuck to the plan_ we wouldn't have gotten caught!" he said. "But _no_ , you had to delay us for nothing more than a schoolboy prank! You _knew_ the reaction times lawmen have on Sihnon, you _knew_ but you decided to fuck with their fire system anyway. So don't you _fucking_ put that on me."

Roger was silent for a few moments. "How long's it been, anyway?" he finally wheezed.

The question caught Merlin off-guard. "Dunno," he said. "Fifty years? Why?"

"You look the same. Look at me." Roger indicated his body. "I'm falling apart. Can barely walk without my cane. But you, you don't look a day over twenty-five."

"Clean living," Merlin said, and Roger hacked a laugh.

"No, but really," the other man persisted. "It just don't seem fair to me, is all. You got out free, didn't see the inside of a cell for more'n an hour. I serve my time and lose _everything_ , and you don't care a fig."

"I did care, Roger," said Merlin, broken. "I tried to get you out, so many times. I bribed them, I blackmailed them, _God_ , I even _fucked_ the ones that wanted it. They wouldn't let you go; they wouldn't let me get anywhere near you." He picked the mask up off the floor and stroked a finger over the rouged cheek. "You remember how it was. The Alliance were gathering their power. Any hint of a rebellion was put down."

"You could have done more!" Roger hissed. "You could have broken me out. I saw you do things. You have… something. Some kind of power. That's what keeps you young, innit? You could have saved me."

Merlin leaned forward in his chair. "You wouldn't have needed saving," he said, "if you had just stuck to the _bloody plan._ It was all a waste, you know. The Alliance stopped the newspaper production before our article was run, all because you called the lawmen there by tampering with the alarm. We accomplished _nothing._ You went to jail for _nothing_." Merlin glared, hard and furious.

Roger shrank back in his chair. "It was all pointless then? Everything we did, just… scrapped?"

"Aye. No one saw our article. It was all a waste."

"Damn. I tried to find out what happened after, but no one would talk about it." Roger sighed. He looked thinner, somehow, or crumpled, like gossamer stretched over a deflating balloon. Merlin watched his anger and indignation flee. Even his moustache drooped.

"I took care of them," Merlin said. "Your family. Alliance tried to seize your estates on Sihnon and Bellerophon, but I made sure they couldn't."

"I know. I saw the accounts. And maybe I was… keeping tabs on you, a little. I've still got friends on Sihnon and Bellerophon. That's how I knew it was you. Really, you look exactly the same. Some kind of experimental surgery from the inner planets?"

"Yeah, something like that." Merlin slouched back and crossed his arms. "So what have you been doing with yourself? Other than fucking _stalking_ me, I mean."

Roger glared. "You think you can just appear again after fifty fucking years and we'll have a nice chat as though we were friends?"

"Then why the hell _did_ you bring me here?" Merlin was quickly losing his patience. "You just felt like torturing someone, and we happened to be convenient targets? My captain was an Independent, you know. Goddamn war hero. He fought for people like us, and this is how you repay him."

"I didn't _want_ to torture him!" Roger said. "But there are appearances that must be maintained. I have a reputation to uphold. If you thought the ridiculous game of facades and backstabbing that we all played on Sihnon was rough, then out here it's positively _brutal_. Look, my men recognized you from my list. I keep records of people that… people that matter to me, good or bad."

"I take it I'm in the _bad_ section?" said Merlin.

"Damn right you're in the _bad_ section." Roger's moustache bristled. "Now, I can't bring in people from the record and then just let them go without some form of repayment. My soldiers would know, they'd figure it out, and then my reputation gets tarnished and they lose respect."

Merlin was incredulous. "You call beating my captain bloody ' _repayment'_? For what, precisely? He didn't do anything to you. He's not on your list. Do you even know his name?"

"His name's not important." Roger waved an elegantly be-ringed hand and brushed away Merlin's questions. "Though it is… regrettable… that a man who fought for independence was hurt."

"' _A man was hurt',_ " Merlin mocked. "God, you won't even claim responsibility for it, will you? You haven't changed at all."

" _Well that's bloody rich, coming from you!"_ roared Roger, startling Merlin. "Bloody look at you. But you're missing the point. You're always missing the bloody _point_. I saved you, don't you get it? These men that work for me, they're morons. They don't give a fuck if I torture you or your captain. Your captain might as well be you; when I hurt him, I hurt you. That's all they care about. As long as the people on the list are getting repaid, I keep my reputation; I keep their respect."

"Why do you insist on surrounding yourself with people who will only respect you if you torture innocents?"

"Because they get the work done." Roger carefully enunciated each syllable. "Because that's how things are here. That's how things are _everywhere_. People respect power, only out here, power means something different than it did on Sihnon. Here, power over someone doesn't mean I can blackmail them or embarrass them in public. It means I can hurt them. It means I can _kill_ them."

Merlin felt sick. "And that's what you want? To hurt people?"

"No, it's not what I bloody want."

"So why do it at all?"

" _Because what I want is my wife and daughter back!_ " Roger bellowed, even louder than before. "But I can't have that, can I? And you come swooping in here"-Merlin resented that; he had been kidnapped, after all-"And you try to tell me how I should be living my last few years of life. You've always thought you could do this. You've always thought that you can just… change how people live and think, change everything. But you can't just magically fix people. You, you blunder around, always so judgemental, always thinking you're on some pedestal above the rest of us-"

Merlin had had enough. "Fuck you, Roger," he said, cutting off the other man's tirade. "You don't know a goddamn thing about how I think. We could have changed everything. What the fuck did you think we were rebelling for, if not for change? You didn't care about freedom or equality. You just wanted a bit of adventure. You wanted to feel important for once in your entire worthless life. And you still do, don't you? That's why you get off on having power." Merlin stood and walked deliberately, measuredly, to Roger's chair. He planted his hands on the armrests and leaned in close, close enough to smell the lemony oil Roger had always rubbed into his moustache to make it gleam. "You were right, earlier," he said. "I can do things. I have power. _Real_ power, not this…" he gestured as though flicking something disgusting off his fingertips. "Tripe. And if you don't let me take my friends and leave, _right fucking now_ , I will bring this place to the ground."

Roger matched Merlin's burning glare with one of his own. "I don't think you'll want to leave just yet."

"Yeah, well, you were never all that good at thinking." Merlin straightened and made for the door. "No need to accompany me. I'll find my own way out."  
"I have some information I believe you'll want to know."

"Fuck you," Merlin said without heat and without turning around.

"There's talk on the border planets of another rebellion."

Merlin paused with his hand on the doorknob.

"Yes, I thought that might catch your attention," Roger said, and Merlin could tell without looking that he was smirking like the discarded mask. "Come on, then, Emrys. It would be just like old times."

And suddenly Merlin understood. "That's why you didn't torture me. You wanted me to be _grateful_ so I'd work with you again. You just want to be subversive and rock the boat because you _can_."

"But it's for a good cause," Roger protested. "Think of the people we'd help if we managed to win independence."

"Don't pretend like you care," said Merlin, and he pushed open the door.

Scar and Knuckles made no move to stop him, and he retraced his steps through cold metal hallways. The place had seemed sinister at first, but now that he had met its master, it took on a more pathetic air. Merlin found the little holding cell quickly, and Reynolds was conscious.

"Let's get out of here," Merlin said. "I think we're free to go, but I don't want to stick around and test their patience."

Reynolds nodded and struggled to his feet. He shook off Kaylee's helping hands at first, but after he stumbled and Merlin huffed impatiently, he allowed Kaylee to pull his arm over her shoulders and bear some of his weight. "This way," he muttered, and he took off down the hallway. "I was conscious when they brought us in. I think I remember the way out."

They passed a few guards on their way out, but no one tried to stop them. Merlin was relieved. After seeing Roger, he wasn't sure he had the patience for diplomacy. As they approached what Reynolds indicated was the entrance, a loud banging echoed from the outside.

"Open this _gorram_ door or I swear I will fucking blow it open!"

"Is that-?" Merlin looked over at Kaylee, who had dissolved into laughter.

Reynolds shook off Kaylee and wrenched the door open. Zoe and Jayne stood before them, bearing more firearms than Merlin had seen since he had raided an armory with Roger. Simon hovered off to the side and slightly behind, and dread and determination warred on his face. Even Inara and River, armed with a small revolver and an expression of terror apiece, lingered in the background.

"Oh thank God," Simon breathed, and he rushed to envelop Kaylee in his arms. She clung to him with a sob of relief.

Inara took a single step forward, and then another, and then Reynolds stumbled to her all at once, and he buried his face in her neck. He shook, and she stroked a hand down his spine.

Merlin looked away, embarrassed to have seen such a private moment. He accidentally caught Jayne's eye, and the other man spread his arms mockingly.

"Where's my hug, then?" Jayne demanded.

Merlin recognized a challenge when he saw one. It would be impossible for him not to. In Arthur's court, challenges had been a fact of life, an almost daily occurrence, and he wouldn't shame his king by backing down now. Merlin strode forward and wrapped Jayne in his arms and-never let it be said that he only does things halfway-planted a loud, messy kiss on Jayne's cheek. Jayne squawked and tried to wriggle free, but Merlin only clung tighter. "Here's your hug," he said, and he ran one thumb along the ridge of Jayne's hip.

Jayne's muscles tensed, and he made a strange noise. Merlin gently pushed him away. It was supposed to be a joke, but somehow the whole situation had become too serious, too intimate.

"We should go," Reynolds said, his voice tight with pain. Inara nodded in agreement and wormed her way under the captain's shoulder.

Simon pulled a tiny bottle out of his jacket pocket and shook two pills into his hand. "Painkillers," he explained, and he shoved them into Reynolds's hand. "They'll tide you over until I can give you some stronger local."

"Thanks," said the captain. He tilted his head back and swallowed the pills without water, grimacing.

"How'd you find us, anyways?" Kaylee asked, plastered to Simon's side.

"We saw the massive explosion and figured it had to be your fault," Zoe replied.

"Hey!" said Reynolds. "It's not always my fault."

"Yes it is," Jayne said. "We followed you, then Zoe and I went back for the weapons."

"Please tell me I don't have to walk all the way back to the ship," Reynolds gasped as Inara struggled stoically under his weight.

"Naw, we brought the shuttle. Figured we might have been able to bluff."

Reynolds considered that. "Could have worked. We've done it before."

"It's just a little longer," Zoe said, hauling the captain's other arm around her shoulders. "Just around that ridge."

"Childe Reynolds to the dark ship came," Merlin mused, and the captain hacked out a laugh that ended in a pained wheeze.

"Don't laugh," scolded Simon. "Your ribs might be broken. What do you mean, anyway? The shuttle's not that dark. I mean, the lights work most of the time."

"It's just an old poem from Earth-That-Was. It doesn't mean anything," said Merlin.

Reynolds groaned in relief as the shuttle came into view, and Zoe and Inara carefully settled him onto the bare mattress.

"Sorry," said Inara. "We didn't really have time to get any bedding."

The captain pulled a face. "I don't even want to think about the things this bed has seen."

"Then don't think about it," Inara snapped, and she pushed Reynolds's arm off her shoulders harder than strictly necessary. He winced, but she had already stalked away.

"Why did you have to say that, sir?" Merlin heard Zoe mutter, but he tuned the rest of the quiet conversation out. It didn't seem like one he was supposed to overhear.

Jayne brought Simon's medical bag to the bed, and the doctor took the opportunity to instruct Kaylee and River on how to treat broken ribs.

"I'll fly back, if you don't mind." Inara had made her way to stand by Merlin at what passed for the shuttle's helm, her face a careful mask. "I know the way to the ship, and it's easier than giving directions."

Merlin nodded and moved to give her space. "Thank you," he said. "For the rescue."

"I didn't even do anything." Inara's smile cracked the edges of her facade, and the shuttle lifted off the ground.

"But you were ready to, and that means a lot."

"I don't know if I would have been able to… to really shoot someone. I'm not good at hurting people, not for real."

Merlin thought back to Roger. "That's good. Don't practice too hard, yeah?" He winked.

"Yeah," said Inara with a grateful smile, and then _Serenity_ crouched below them, dark and inviting.

Merlin didn't think about Roger's information until he was safely in the pilot's seat of _Serenity_ , and then he thought about it hard enough that he didn't register Reynolds's approach until the other man had lowered himself gingerly next to Merlin.

"I noticed you show a distinct lack of being tortured," the captain said. "I'm almost jealous."

Merlin started then settled back. "Roger is an old… friend of mine, I guess you could say. We knew each other on Sihnon. I was a journalist back then; he was some rich lazy fuck who had never worked a day in his life. He was anti-Alliance though. I didn't know why at the time, but it didn't matter. We had a plan. We were going to replace a blatantly, demonstrably false article with a verifiable one about the conditions that Alliance slaves lived and worked in. Roger thought it would be funny to pull the fire alarm on our way out. Lawmen responded, and we got caught. He's been tracking me since he got out, so he took his chance when we got to Newhope."

"What did he want, if not to torture you?" Reynolds asked when Merlin paused.

"He wanted to work with me again. He had some… interesting information."

"Well, out with it then."

"He said there's talk in the colonies about another rebellion. Another war, maybe."

Reynolds settled deeper into the copilot's chair. "Well now, that _is_ interesting information," he said, almost to himself.

"Sir, if there is another war, what would you do?"

"Fight, I s'pose. Don't think I ever really stopped fighting." Reynolds turned his vivid blue gaze to Merlin, and Merlin's heart skipped a beat, just like it always had when Arthur had looked at him that way. "The important question is what would _you_ do?"

Merlin didn't have an answer to that, so he shrugged. "I'd probably fight. Maybe not as a soldier, but I'd find some way to be useful."

"Your talents would be wasted as a soldier," Reynolds agreed. "And you're too bloody subordinate. But you could do real damage on a battlefield."

"Aye," said Merlin. "I have."

"Sorry," Reynolds said after a moment. "I got too excited. Maybe it's not such a good idea for me to fight on the front lines again, after all. Maybe I should stick with _Serenity_. We can transport soldiers, or haul supplies. Something like that. I'm sure the crew would agree to that. It's not much more dangerous than what we do already."

"It could all be a moot point, anyways. I don't even know if Roger's information is good."

"It's worth following up on, though, isn't it?"

"So eager to go to war," Merlin murmured.

Reynolds shifted in his seat. "Alliance has wronged a lot of people."

"And you think war will set things right?"

"Don't patronize me, son. It's not about fixing things. It's about justice."

"You want to be a champion, then? A knight in shining armor, swooping in to save the poor helpless townsfolk?"

"People need a champion." The captain's jaw set in a hard line. "It don't have to be me, but they need someone to rally under, someone to unite them. We didn't have that last time; that's why we lost."

Merlin snorted. "You lost because you had inferior numbers and firepower."

"No, it was more than that," Reynolds insisted. "We didn't know what we were going to do if we won. We didn't have anyone in mind to lead us. We didn't know what laws to change; we didn't have any idea about how to govern ourselves. At the end, we weren't even fighting to win. We were fighting because we couldn't do anything else."

"And you think things would have been different-what? If you had a champion?"

"Well, yeah," said Reynolds, but he sounded dubious. "Wasn't that what your Arthur was supposed to be? A champion for the people, or some such?"

"Arthur was supposed to be a lot of things." Reynolds was right though, Merlin knew. Arthur had been the champion that his people needed.

"Why are you arguing with me on this?" Reynolds demanded. "Aren't you supposed to be some wise advisor? Are you trying to tell me we shouldn't rebel at all?"

"No, I just-" Merlin gestured helplessly. "Just make sure you're fighting for the right reasons, yeah?"

Reynolds stared at him hard. "You're a shit advisor. That was the most generic and useless advice I've ever heard."

"Good thing I'm such a fantastic pilot then, right?" Merlin flashed his sunniest grin.

"Yeah, kid," Reynolds chuckled. "I'd have fired you long ago if you didn't fly my ship like a dream."

"A _dream,_ you say?" Merlin laid his hand over his heart with affected solemnity. "Oh, Captain!"

"Captain, I don't mean to alarm you," came Zoe's voice over the comm system, low and controlled. "But we seem to have a stowaway. A very… _naked_ stowaway. He's not making much sense, but he said Merlin's name."

Reynolds looked at Merlin, who shrugged.

"Where are we headed? Conrad? That's fine, put it on auto," said the captain without pause. "Zoe? Is he fighting?"

"No, sir," Zoe said. "But he seems scared. Like I said, he's not really communicating. We don't know what language he's speaking. Even Simon and River can't identify it."

Merlin's heart jumped into his throat, but he shoved it firmly back in place. It would do him no good to get his hopes up only to have them dashed as they had been so many times before.

"Come on then," Reynolds said, and he drew his gun and dropped into a fighting stance. Merlin followed the captain through to the kitchen, where the rest of the crew stood grouped around a solitary figure. He pushed bodies out of the way, not caring whose toes he stepped on.

Merlin recognized Arthur instantly, despite the years that had separated them. Even wrapped in a shock blanket from the sick bay, Arthur was regal.

"Merlin," Arthur said, and Merlin almost wept. "I don't know what happened, but I know it's your bloody fault."

At that, Merlin rushed to his king. "Yes, yes, all my fault, yes," he babbled, uncaring of what he said as long as he knew his words fell on Arthur's ears. He'd say anything Arthur wanted as long as he could keep the golden king in his arms. "But you're here, and it doesn't matter now."

Arthur pushed Merlin away gently and frowned. "Merlin?" he said uncertainly. "I can't understand you. Oh God, did I hit my head? Can you understand me?" He felt around the back of his head in a panic, and the shock blanket crumpled to the ground. Merlin heard Kaylee giggle in the background, but he didn't care, because Arthur was here, Arthur was _alive_.

"Sorry," Merlin said, switching to Brythonic. His native tongue felt rusty from disuse, but it quickly gleamed as he polished it with speech. "Language has changed. You've been… gone for a while."

"I've been dead for a while, you mean," Arthur corrected. He saw the look on Merlin's face, and his tone gentled. "I remember," and Merlin knew he wasn't just talking about his death.

Merlin stooped to pick up the blanket, and he held Arthur in his arms long after he had finished draping it like a cloak around the other man's shoulders. He didn't let go until he heard a the cock of a gun behind him.

"Anybody want to explain what the _fuck_ is going on?" Jayne demanded.

"Lower your weapon, son," said Reynolds. "Our stowaway is no threat to us. But I think we do deserve the full story."

Merlin sat pressed up against Arthur, too giddy to care if they seemed a spectacle, and recounted the tale of his arrival at Camelot, his appointment as Arthur's manservant, and Morgana's fall from grace and eventual betrayal. The crew listened, rapt, draped over the few chairs that hadn't been plundered on Illyria. River sat nearby and quietly translated into Latin for Arthur. Merlin's voice broke when he told of how he had failed to save his king, and River reached over and stroked his arm.

"I told you he'd come back," she said when Merlin paused to pull himself together. "I told you your sun would rise again. He's even brighter than I thought."

"I know. I'd forgotten," said Merlin, and he steadied himself and launched back into his story. He told about Guinevere's rule, and he told about watching the magic around him fade as the ages marched on.

Arthur was indignant when Merlin talked about stealing his bones. "Sacrilege," he muttered. "Even after everything I did for you, you couldn't let me rest in peace."

"And bloody well I didn't!" Merlin retorted. "Otherwise you'd have come to choking on-mausoleum dust!"

Arthur raised an elegant eyebrow. " _Mausoleum dust?_ That's the best you could come up with?"

"Shut up. Besides, you would have died of starvation if I hadn't brought you along. There's no one left on Earth anymore, and you never did learn to fetch your own food."

Arthur grew very still. "There's no one left on Earth? Then where are we?"

"Space."

"Space?"

"The heavens." Merlin thought back to what he had learned about astronomy under Gaius's tutelage. "We're among the stars, but everything we were taught was wrong. The universe isn't nested spheres; it's so much more than that. Oh, you have so much to learn!"

Arthur looked faintly terrified. "Yay?"

"So let me get this straight," Jayne interrupted, and River resumed her translating. "This fellow here," he gestured with the barrel of his gun, "is King Arthur? _The_ King Arthur? And Emrys is a two-thousand-year-old _sorcerer_?"

"Well, it sounds kind of unbelievable when you put it like that," said Merlin uncomfortably. "But yeah, that's the general idea."

"You're _gorram_ right it sounds unbelievable! It _is_ unbelievable! You're having us on, ain't you?"

"He's telling the truth," Reynolds said.

Jayne rounded on the captain. "You believe him?"

"You knew," said Inara suddenly. Reynolds opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off. "No, don't. How long have you known?"

"Since the beginning," he admitted. "Merlin's name caught my attention, and I did a bit of research."

"Figures you'd be dumb enough to use your real name for all that time," Jayne muttered, but his protests subsided.

"Why now, though?" Kaylee asked, her brow furrowed. "What's so special about now?"

"There's talk of revolution in the Rim," Reynolds informed the group. "There might even be another war, and the Independents need a unified banner to fight under. Arthur can give us that. It's all just rumors though, nothing concrete. It might not even amount to anything."

"But you want it to," said Zoe.

"Aye. Don't you?"

"Dunno." Zoe looked very tired. "Haven't we lost enough?"

Reynolds moved to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Alliance tortured River and drove her and Simon from their home. Alliance killed Book and Mr. Universe. They threatened Inara. They created the Reavers that killed your husband and tens of thousands of others. They condone slavery and exploit the outer planets." He tilted her chin up with two fingers. "We've lost more than enough. We've lost too much to _not_ fight, not just for ourselves, but for everyone the Alliance has hurt."

Arthur leaned in close to Merlin. "What's going on?" he whispered.

"Remember when you'd talk to your men before a battle?" Merlin whispered back. "Encourage them, get them ready to fight, that kind of thing? That's what's going on."

"I didn't fight in the last war," Jayne spoke up, holstering his gun and crossing his arms. "Maybe I should've."

"I'm not so sure I want to fight," said Kaylee nervously, tugging on the sleeve of her coverall. "But we could still help other ways, right? We could, I dunno, deliver supplies or something, right?"

"Sure," Reynolds agreed. He looked over at Inara. "And we could find you somewhere safe where you wouldn't come to harm no matter who won."

"No," Inara said quickly. "I'll stay with you. You should know that by now. I'll make myself useful somehow. I can learn more first aid, maybe." She glanced at Simon, who nodded.

"What about you, son?" Reynolds addressed Simon. "I wouldn't ask you to fight against the people you grew up with, and I wouldn't think any less of you if you decided to leave."

Simon and River shared a long look. "We're staying," Simon said decisively, and River nodded her agreement. "We've run for too long."

"Is it working?" Arthur questioned. "The speech, I mean."

"Yeah," Merlin said. "I think it is. Come on. Let's get you some proper clothes, and then I want to show you the heavens."

Merlin drifted through the space between stars, the Gleam like a Silmaril upon his brow. For the first time in an aeon, he wasn't alone. Arthur stood at his side with his face pressed against the window of the helm, brimming with wonder and awe.

"This is your life now?" Arthur said after drinking his fill of starlight and settling into the copilot's chair. "Everything is so… different. But you're just the same."

"I'm different too," said Merlin. "It's been a long time. I've had to change."

"Some things stay the same, though. The first thing I do when I get back is gather a war party. Looks like we're going into battle together again."

"War never changes," Merlin agreed, then smiled to himself. "But you're going to have to do more to lead these people than you did in Camelot. They don't know you. You're going to have to get them to trust you."

"That's the easy part! Look at my face. Who wouldn't trust this face?"

Merlin laughed but quickly grew serious again. "You'll have to prove that you can be a good leader. You'll have to… campaign, sort of, and then try to get them to elect you."

"What is this, bloody _Rome?_ " Arthur demanded. "I'm a _king!_ Kings don't campaign for votes like some _senator_."

"That's just how the law works now. Leaders have to prove their ability to lead in order to... " Merlin broke off when he saw the corners of Arthur's mouth twitching. "Oh, fuck you!" he said, and he punched Arthur in the shoulder. Arthur punched him back, and they dissolved into a full-on tussle, which Arthur handily won due to Merlin's reluctance to use the dashboard as a battleground.

"Over two millennia as a sack of bones, and I still beat you!" Arthur crowed as he captured Merlin in a headlock.

"Yeah, yeah, get off me, you menace," Merlin said as he struggled against Arthur's iron grip. "If this is how you treat your citizens, I'm not voting for you." Arthur finally took pity on him, and he managed to wriggle free. "Come on. Let's get Kaylee to stop the engine for a little bit. I want to go for a walk with you."

"Where?" Arthur asked.

Merlin pointed out the window. "Outside," and he grinned when Arthur's eyes went wide.

 **A/N:** Translation of Latin lyrics of "Lux Aurumque".

Jack Harkness, an immortal man.  
Ged, the Archmage of Earthsea who befriends a prince who fulfills an ancient prophecy and becomes King of Earthsea. Ged later sacrifices his own powers to prevent magic from leaving the land.  
The Cask of Amontillado, a short story in which the narrator gets a man drunk and bricks him up in the cellar.  
Merlin, a poem by Edwin Muir.  
Merlin and the Gleam, a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  
The Charge of the Light Brigade, a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  
Childe Rowland, a fairy tale in which Childe Rowland, advised by Merlin, must rescue his sister from the Dark Tower of the Fairy King. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came is a poem by Robert Browning, who took the title from a line in Shakespeare's _King Lear._ Neither Shakespeare's line nor Browning's poem are related to the fairy tale.


End file.
